A Perfect Hoax

The traveling salesman Enrico Gaia decides to play a prank on the self-important, aging writer Mario Samigli. He convinces Samigli that a representative from a prestigious publishing house in Vienna is interested in commissioning a German translation of a novel Samigli had written and self-published forty years ago. This deception pushes the old man to new levels of self-delusion, with Gaia orchestrating a series of tricks to fuel his fantasies.
In this tragicomic exploration of deceit and disillusionment, Italo Svevo, who himself remained an undiscovered writer until his later years, satirizes aspects of his own life and provides a profound psychological portrayal of an individual who has become disconnected from reality.