Gadda, Carlo Emilio [key], 1893–1973, Italian novelist. Although trained as an electrical engineer, Gadda devoted his energies to writing. His difficult style, deliberately obscure, precludes a wide audience. A fascination with words led him to use phonetic tricks (e.g., deliberate misspellings, dialects) to distort and mock formal writing and produce a fresh realism. Gadda's early works are collected in I sogni e la folgore (1955). His best-known novel is Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana (1957, tr. That Awful Mess on Via Merulana, 1965). His Acquainted with Grief appeared in English in 1969.
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