Moravia is not simply painting the portrait of an age but also coming to grips through his art with the great questions of all ages - the erotic, love, death, and the purposes of life. 1934 recapitulates the major themes of his art and at the same time takes us beyond them.

Secrecy and Silence are second nature to Marcello Clerici, the hero of The Conformist, a book which made Alberto Moravia one of the world's most read postwar writers. Clerici is a man with everything under control - a wife who loves him, colleagues who respect him, the hidden power that comes with his secret work for the Italian political police during the Mussolini years. But then he is assigned to kill his former professor, now in exile, to demonstrate his loyalty to the Fascist state, and falls in love with a strange, compelling woman; his life is torn open - and with it the corrupt...

Alberto Moravia, 53, hatte gerade seinen Welterfolg Die Langeweile verffentlicht, sich von seiner Frau getrennt und die junge Dacia Maraini kennengelernt. Claudia Cardinale, 23, war seit Viscontis Rocco und seine Brder ein Star. Das Interview, das die Zeitschrift Esquire in Auftrag gegeben hatte, fand im Mai 1961 in Moravias Arbeitszimmer statt. Der alternde Dichter sa tippend an der Schreibmaschine und war von der Situation so fasziniert, dass ihm die Schreibmaschine immer wieder zu Boden fiel. Moravia erffnet das Interview mit der Bemerkung, er interessiere sich weder fr Claudia Cardinales...

Die Geschichte eines Jungen, der seine Eltern, die Schule, seine Freunde und die ganze Welt unertrglich findet. Er beschliet, in den Tod zu fliehen und landet mitten im Leben.