Born in Trieste in 1861, Italo Svevo worked for a family paint business for most of his life and was unknown as a writer until the 1923 publication - thanks in part to the efforts of James Joyce - of Zeno's Conscience, which is now considered a classic of Italian fiction.
...a wonderful comedy where the resourcefulness of the vain and creative mind is aided by a variety of unlikely circumstances in its desperate effort to reconstruct self-esteem and serenity -- Tim Parks