Theodore Dreiser was an American writer who is seen as the forerunner (precursore) of a new trend in novel , the psychological realism. Sister Carrie, his first novel, was published in 1900 but was suppressed (censurata) until 1912. It tells the story of a young, pretty, country girl who moves to the big city to satisfy her vague ambitions (vaghe ambizioni). She is used by men and uses them in turn (a sua volta)to become a successful Broadway actress and realizing her own American Dream. On the other hand (D’altro canto), George Hurstwood, the married man who has run away with her, fails (fallisce), becomes a beggar (mendicante) and then commits suicide. It has been called the “greatest of all American urban novels” because it is a realistic presentation of the vagaries (capricci) of urban life: its ingenuous heroine goes unpunished for her transgressions against conventional morality while the emotional disintegration of Hurstwood represents a triumph of psychological analysis.In 1956 the novel was adapted into a movie – Carrie – by William Wyler, starring Sir Lawrence Olivier and Jennifer Jones and in Italy it appered under the title Gli occhi che non sorrisero.