Giovanni Verga


Giovanni Carmelo Verga was an Italian realist writer, best known for his depictions of life in his native Sicily, especially the short story and the novel I Malavoglia.

Life and career

The first son of Giovanni Battista Catalano Verga and Caterina Di Mauro, Verga was born into a prosperous family of Catania in Sicily. He began writing in his teens, producing the largely unpublished, but currently quite famous, historical novel Amore e Patria ; then, although nominally studying law at the University of Catania, he used money his father had given him to publish his I carbonari della montagna in 1861 and 1862. This was followed by Sulle lagune in 1863.
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Meanwhile, Verga had been serving in the Catania National Guard, after which he travelled to Florence several times, settling there in 1869.
He moved to Milan in 1872, where he developed his new approach, characterized by the use of dialogue to develop character, which resulted in his most significant works. In 1880 his story collection Vita dei campi, including "Fantasticheria", "La lupa", "Jeli il pastore", "Pentolaccia", and Rosso Malpelo, most of which were about rural Sicily, came out. It also included "Cavalleria rusticana", which he adapted for the theatre and later formed the basis for several opera librettos including Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana and Gastaldon's Mala Pasqua!. Verga's short story, "Malaria", was one of the first literary depictions of the disease malaria.
He then embarked on a projected series of five novels, but only completed two, I Malavoglia and Mastro-don Gesualdo, the second of which was the last major work of his literary career. Both are widely recognized as masterpieces.
In 1894 Verga moved back to Catania, to the house in which he had lived as a child. In 1920 he was appointed Senator of the Kingdom ' for life '. He died of a cerebral thrombosis in 1922.
The Teatro Verga in Catania is named after him. His house in via Sant'Anna is now a museum, the Casa-Museo Giovanni Verga.
He was an atheist.

Novels

Spring and other Stories '
The Life of the Fields '
Little Novels of Sicily ' translated by D.H. Lawrence