Italo Calvino

A novel of a delightful eccentric on a search for truth, by the renowned author of Invisible Cities.
 
In The New York Times Book Review, the poet Seamus Heaney praised Mr. Palomar as a series of “beautiful, nimble, solitary feats of imagination.” Throughout these twenty-seven intricately structured chapters, the musings of the crusty Mr. Palomar consistently render the world sublime and ridiculous....

Chosen as one of the New York Times's ten best books in the year of its original publication, this collection immediately won a cherished place among lovers of the tale and vaulted Calvino into the ranks of the great folklorists. Introduction by the Author; illustrations. Translated by George Martin. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

"At the time of his death, Italo Calvino was at work on six lectures setting forth the qualities in writing he most valued, and which he believed would define literature in the century to come. Here, in Six Memos for the Next Millennium, are the five lectures he completed, forming not only a stirring defense of literature, but also an indispensable guide to the writings of Calvino himself. He devotes one "memo" each to the concepts of lightness, quickness,...

A group of travellers chance to meet, first in a castle, then a tavern. Their powers of speech are magically taken from them and instead they have only tarot cards with which to tell their stories. What follows is an exquisite interlinking of narratives, and a fantastic, surreal and chaotic history of all human consciousness.

"In Italo Calvino's cosmicomics, primordial beings cavort on the nearby surface of the moon, play marbles with atoms, and bear ecstatic witness to Earth's first dawn. Exploring natural phenomena and the origins of the universe, these beloved tales relate complex scientific concepts to our common sensory, emotional, human world."--Publisher's description.

This collection of three long stories by the author of Cosmicomics "demonstrates clearly his talent for transforming the mundane into the marvelous" (The New York Times).
Italo Calvino is widely recognized as one of postwar Italy's greatest fiction writers and one of the twentieth century's greatest fabulists. This collection of three stories showcases his range and virtuosity.
In the title story, an Italian Communist...

An extraordinary collection of essays, forewords, articles, and interviews, The Written World and the Unwritten World displays the remarkable intelligence and razor-sharp wit of prolific Italian writer Italo Calvino as he explores the meaning of literature in a rapidly changing world. From classics to contemporary literature, from tradition to the avant-garde, Calvino masterfully explores reading, writing, and translating through careful and illuminating...

In this enchanting book of linked stories, Italo Calvino charts the disastrous schemes of an Italian peasant, an unskilled worker in a drab northern industrial city in the 1950s and '60s, struggling to reconcile his old country habits with his current urban life. Marcovaldo has a practiced eye for spotting natural beauty and an unquenchable longing for the unspoiled rural world of his imagination. Much to the continuing puzzlement of his wife, his...

"One of The Guardian Best Books of 2013, chosen by Pankaj Mishra" "Selected for the SFG Gift Guide 2013" Michael Wood is professor of English and comparative literature at Princeton University. His most recent books are Yeats and Violence and A Very Short Introduction to Film. Martin McLaughlin is the Agnelli-Serena Professor of Italian Studies at the University of Oxford. He is the translator of Calvino's Hermit in Paris: Autobiographical Writings,...