WORLD : Italian Writer Moravia, 82, Dies

ROME — Italy’s best-known contemporary writer, Alberto Moravia, died today at 82, leaving a string of novels exploring women, sex and the morals of Rome’s middle classes.

Preliminary indications were Moravia died either as a result of a stroke or of cardiac arrest.

Moravia became a world-known author with the publication of his book “Woman of Rome” in 1949. Relating the adventures of a Rome prostitute, with sex episodes that were unusually explicit for the time, it sold a million copies and was made into a film starring Gina Lollobrigida.

He repeated the success in 1957 with La Ciociara, known in English as “Two Women,” which was also made into an internationally successful film that won a Hollywood Oscar for Sophia Loren.

In his literary career which started in 1925, Moravia wrote more than 20 books, including novels and novellas, collections of short stories and essays. He also wrote plays and became a highly respected film critic in Italy.