Acerbic novel Conrad's written about Italy (8)
I believe the answer is:
sardonic
'acerbic' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are adjectives. Perhaps you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'novel conrad's written about italy' is the wordplay.
'novel' is an anagram indicator.
'written about' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'italy' becomes 'i'.
'conrads' with letters rearranged gives 'sardonc'.
'sardonc' placed around 'i' is 'SARDONIC'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for sardonic that I've seen before include "Tart" , "Heartless and bitter" , "Dry, cynically mocking" , "Scornfully derisive" , "sneering" .)