Giovanni Carmelo Verga di Fontanabianca was an Italian realist (verista) writer, best known for his depictions of life in his native Sicily, especially the short story and later play Cavalleria rusticana and the novel I Malavoglia.
Giovanni Verga
Portrait of Verga, by Antonino Gandolfo.
Verga's house-museum in Catania
Photo by Verga of Sicilian couple who worked his property in 1897
Literary realism is a literary genre, part of the broader realism in arts, that attempts to represent subject-matter truthfully, avoiding speculative fiction and supernatural elements. It originated with the realist art movement that began with mid-nineteenth-century French literature (Stendhal) and Russian literature. Literary realism attempts to represent familiar things as they are. Realist authors chose to depict every day and banal activities and experiences.
Benito Pérez Galdós, Spanish writer from the Canary Islands