Mr Palomar is a delightful eccentric whose chief activity is looking at things. He is seeking knowledge. Whether contemplating a fine cheese, a hungry gecko, a woman sunbathing topless or a flight of
A twentieth-century master of the fantastic pays homage to his nineteenth-century predecessors with this posthumously published anthology of enchanting, uncanny, terrifying, and deliciously entertaini
A collection of fables. It is populated with waifs and strays, a gluttonous thief and a mischievous gardener. It features a comic story "The Argentine Ant".
A major testament by an essential 20th century writer composed of five strikingly elegant "memory exercises" about his life and work--now available in paperback. With visionary passion, the author tra
A postmodern novel which combines a love and a detective story with a sardonic dissection of the publishing industry in an allegory of reading. Two readers attempt to finish the same book, but are com
A collection of stories about time, space, and the evolution of the universe in which the author blends mathematics with poetic imagination. “Calvino does what very few writers can do: he descr
With encyclopedic knowledge, this title writes about such diverse subjects as the imaginative pleasures of maps, bizarre exhibitions and the earliest forms of written language. It provides a glimpse i
Includes five autobiographical meditations that delves into the author's past, remembering awkward childhood walks with his father, a lifelong obsession with the cinema and fighting in the Italian Res
A collection of stories that follows the adventures of a cast of characters. It includes "Smog" and "A Plunge into Real Estate", as well as other eleven tales.
A triptych of novels in one volume. Viscount Medardo is bisected by a cannonball on the plains of Bohemia; Baron Cosimo, aged 12, retires to the trees for the rest of his days; and Charlemagne's knigh
From the internationally-acclaimed author of some of this century's most breathtakingly original novels comes this posthumous collection of thirty-six literary essays that will make any fortunate read
Mr. Palomar, whose name purposely evokes that of the famous telescope, is a seeker after knowledge, a visionary in a world sublime and ridiculous. Whether contemplating a cheese, a woman’s brea
Italo Calvino imagines a novel capable of endless mutations in this intricately crafted story about writing and readers. ? If on a Winter's Night a Traveler turns out to be not one novel but ten, each
A series of short, fantastic narratives inspired by fifteenth-century tarot cards and their archetypical images. Full-color and black-and-white reproductions of tarot cards. Translated by William Wea
The three long stories in this volume show the range and virtuosity of Italy’s most imaginative writer. “Like Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel Garc!a M?rquez, Italo Calvino dreams perfect dr
There was no Italian equivalent to the Brothers Grimm until Italo Calvino collected these folktales from his homeland which transport the reader into a world of adventurers, tricksters, kings, peasant
A collection of stories. Set in Italy in the summer of 1940, it explores the relationships between the different generations caught up in the war as well as the author's own experiences as a teenager.
A couple on a journey across Mexico are excited by the idea of a particular ingredient, suggested by ancient rituals of human sacrifice. Precariously balanced on his throne, a king is able only to lis
A collection of short stories covering the length of the author's writing career, from when he was a teenager to shortly before his death. It includes fables; a town where everything has been forbidde
Italo Calvino once said that he preferred to give false details about his biography since he felt that even the genuine data of a writer's life shed no light on the creative work. This volume of posth
A collection of nineteenth-century fantastic literature - from enchantments and horrors to subtler, psychological terrors. It includes Hoffmann's "The Sandman", Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" and Dickens
Pin is a bawdy, adolescent cobbler's assistant, both arrogant and insecure who - while the Second World War rages - sings songs and tells jokes to endear himself to the grown-ups of his town - particu
Enchanting stories about the evolution of the universe, with characters that are fashioned from mathematical formulae and cellular structures. “Naturally, we were all there, - old Qfwfq said, - where
Calvino's masterpiece opens with a scene that's reassuringly commonplace: apparently. Indeed, it's taking place now. A reader goes into a bookshop to buy a book: not any book, but the latest Calvino,
Three senses-taste, hearing, and smell-dominate the lives of the characters in these witty, fantastical stories. But the senses, promising the fulfillment of desire and an exit from the self, only lea
Italo Calvino, one of the world's best storytellers, died on the eve of his departure for Harvard, where he was to deliver the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures in 1985-86. Reticent by nature, he was alwa
Tales of love and loneliness in which the author blends reality and illusion. “The quirkiness and grace of the writing, the originality of the imagination at work,...and a certain lovable nuttiness ma
Italo Calvino was due to deliver the Charles Eliot Norton lectures at Harvard in 1985-86, but they were left unfinished at his death. The surviving drafts explore of the concepts of lightness, quickne
