{"product_id":"dissipatio-h-g-the-vanishing","title":"Dissipatio H.G.: The Vanishing","description":"\u003cb\u003eA fantastic and philosophical vision of the apocalypse by one of the most striking Italian novelists of the twentieth century.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFrom his solitary \u003ci\u003ebuen retiro\u003c\/i\u003e in the mountains, the last man on earth drives to the capital Chrysopolis to see if anyone else has survived the Vanishing. But there's no one else, living or dead, in that city of \"holy plutocracy,\" with its fifty-six banks and as many churches. He'd left the metropolis to escape his fellow humans and their struggles and ambitions, but to find that the entire human race has evaporated in an instant is more than he had bargained for. Meanwhile, life itself--the rest of nature--is just beginning to flourish now that human beings are gone. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eGuido Morselli's arresting postapocalyptic novel, written just before he died by suicide in 1973, depicts a man much like the author himself--lonely, brilliant, difficult--and a world much like our own, mesmerized by money, speed, and machines. \u003ci\u003eDissipatio H.G.\u003c\/i\u003e is a precocious portrait of our Anthropocene world, and a philosophical last will and testament from a great Italian outsider.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eGuido Morselli\u003c\/b\u003e (1912-1973) was a novelist and essayist. After serving in the Italian Army, he began writing reportages and short stories while living abroad. He wrote several works of fiction, among them \u003ci\u003ePast Conditional\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eDivertimento 1889\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eRoman senza papa\u003c\/i\u003e (Rome Without the Pope), though none were published during his lifetime. NYRB Classics published his novel \u003ci\u003eThe Communist\u003c\/i\u003e in 2017. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrederika Randall \u003c\/b\u003e(1948-2020) was a writer, reporter, and translator. Among her translations are Ippolito Nievo's \u003ci\u003eConfessions of an Italian\u003c\/i\u003e, and for NYRB, Guido Morselli's \u003ci\u003eThe Communist\u003c\/i\u003e. She received the National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship for Translation and the PEN\/Heim Translation Fund Grant, and with Sergio Luzzatto, the Cundill Prize. She finished her translation of \u003ci\u003eDissipatio H.G.\u003c\/i\u003e shortly before her death in Rome in 2020.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"New York Review of Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50372414538002,"sku":"9781681374765","price":11.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_5056f39d-7474-4180-9976-eac92e24a347.jpg?v=1728547224","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/dissipatio-h-g-the-vanishing","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}