New Releases by Italo Calvino

Illustrated 50th Anniversary Edition - With an introduction by #1 New York Times bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Anthony Doerr A beautiful new illustrated hardcover in the Mariner Classics line: Italo Calvino's beloved, intricately crafted novel about an Emperor's travels--a brilliant journey across far-off places and distant memory. With cities, it is as with dreams: everything imaginable can be dreamed... In a garden sit the aged Kublai Khan and the young Marco Polo--Mongol emperor and Venetian traveler. Kublai Khan has sensed the end of his empire coming. Marco Polo diverts his host with stories of the cities he has seen in his travels around the empire: stories about memory and desire, art and creation, life and death. As Marco Polo unspools his tales, the emperor realizes these fantastic places are more familiar than they appear. With a brilliant new introduction from Pulitzer Prize winner Anthony Doerr, and dreamlike illustrations of the cities interspersed throughout, this edition breathes new life into Calvino's classic, a celebration of the story's profound invention and enduring insight.

Cuando tenía doce años, Cosimo Piovasco, barón de Rondò, en un acto de rebelión contra la rígida disciplina familiar, se encaramó a una encina del jardín de la casa paterna. Ese mismo día, el 15 de junio de 1767, conoció a la hija de los marqueses de Ondarivia y le anunció su propósito de no bajar nunca de los árboles. Desde entonces y hasta el final de su vida, Cosimo permanece fiel a ese principio. Desde las postrimerías del siglo XVIII y hasta los albores del XIX, el barón participa tanto en la Revolución francesa como en las invasiones napoleónicas, pero sin abandonar nunca esa distancia necesaria que le permite estar dentro y fuera de las cosas al mismo tiempo. En esta espléndida obra, auténtica novela de aventuras rebosante de humorismo poético y fantástico, Calvino se enfrenta con el que, según él mismo declaró, es su verdadero tema narrativo: «Una persona se fija voluntariamente una difícil regla y la sigue hasta sus últimas consecuencias, ya que sin ella no sería él mismo ni para sí ni para los otros».

«En este volumen se presenta gran parte de los ensayos y artículos de Calvino sobre "sus clásicos": los libros de los escritores y poetas, los hombres de ciencia que más contaron para él, en diversos periodos de su vida».Esther Calvino Los clásicos son, para Italo Calvino (1923-1985), aquellos libros que nunca terminan de decir lo que tienen que decir, textos que «cuanto más cree uno conocerlos de oídas, tanto más nuevos, inesperados, inéditos resultan al leerlos de verdad». Y ése es el convencimiento que anima a Italo Calvino a comentar los «suyos», según su criterio de que el clásico de cada uno «es aquel que no puede serte indiferente y que te sirve para definirte a ti mismo en relación y quizás en contraste con él». Así, mezclados en el tiempo y en la historia de la literatura universal, el lector descubre las lecturas de Italo Calvino. El resultado de todo ello es una obra que se ha convertido, a su vez, en un clásico.

The first complete English-language edition of one of Calvino's important early short story collections Blending reality and illusion with elegance and precision, the stories in this collection--one of Calvino's earliest--take place in a World War II-era and postwar Italy tinged with the visionary and fablelike qualities that would come to define this master storyteller's later style. A trio of gluttonous burglars invade a pastry shop; two children trespass upon a forbidden garden; a wealthy family invites a rustic goatherd to lunch, only to mock him. In the title story, a compact masterpiece of shifting perspectives, a panicked soldier tries to keep his wits--and his life--when he faces off against a young partisan with a loaded rifle and miraculous aim. Throughout, Calvino delights in discovering hidden truths beneath the surface of everyday life. Stories from Last Comes the Raven have been published in translation, but the collection as a whole has never appeared in English. This volume, including several stories newly translated by Ann Goldstein, is an important addition to Calvino's legacy.

Amb estudi introductori, propostes de treball i material complementari a cura de Carme Arenas. El baró rampant, escrita el 1957, és la segona novel·la de la trilogia Els nostres avantpassats. Està ambientada a Ombrosa (Ligúria) a l'època de la Il·lustració i transcorre per la Revolució francesa i la Restauració. Ens explica la història de Cosimo Piovasco di Rondó, fill d'un noble, que un dia als dotze anys decideix pujar dalt d'un arbre com a protesta contra l'autoritat familiar. Aquesta decisió la mantindrà al llarg de tota una vida intensa i compromesa amb els valors de la llibertat i l'ajut als més desfavorits. Amb ell viurem els fets més importants del seu temps i la seva amistat amb Napoleó. Tot això sense tornar a posar mai els peus a terra.

"Cosimo di Rondó, a young Italian nobleman of the eighteenth century, rebels against his parents by climbing into the trees and remaining there for the rest of his life. He adapts efficiently to an existence in the forest canopy he hunts, sows crops, plays games with earth-bound friends, fights forest fires, solves engineering problems, and even manages to have love affairs. From his perch in the trees, Cosimo sees the Age of Enlightenment pass by and a new century dawn. Long considered one of Calvino''s finest works, The baron in the trees exemplifies this brilliant writer''s gift for fantasy."--Page [4] of cover.

El llibre més suggeridor d'Italo Calvino. El Gran Khan, l'emperador dels tàrtars, té a la cort Marco Polo, que li descriu en un seguit d'informes les ciutats que ha conegut en les seves expedicions a l'interior de l'imperi. En aquests informes succints i precisos, el viatger venecià parla dels homes que van construir aquelles ciutats, de la forma que tenen, de les relacions entre els seus habitants i de totes les seves característiques. Unes característiques que potser ha vist només Marco Polo, capaç de fixar-se en els detalls més menuts, de mirar allò que no mira ningú més, de veure allò que als altres els resulta invisible. O potser és que aquestes ciutats existeixen únicament en el relat que en fa Marco Polo al Gran Khan, o en els jocs combinatoris d'aquest llibre extraordinari amb què Italo Calvino obsequia tots els seus lectors. «Em sembla que he escrit un mena de darrer poema d'amor a les ciutats, quan és cada vegada més difícil viure-les com a ciutats.» Italo Calvino

Twenty-six fantasy tales from the 19th century, tracing the genre from its roots in German romanticism to the ghost stories of Henry James. The editor, who prefaces each story, analyzes the resurgence of the fantastic in our day.

ITALO CALVINO

This collection of essays by the acclaimed author of Cosmicomics offers a fascinating, personal journey through some of literature''s greatest works. Classics, according to Italo Calvino, are not only works of enduring cultural value, but also personal touchstones. They are the books we are always rereading in order to understand our world and ourselves. Here, Calvino introduces more than thirty works from his own ideal library in essays of warmth, humor, and striking insight. He discusses great authors ranging from Homer to Jorge Luis Borges, and from Charles Dickens to the Persian folklorist Nezami. Whether tracing the links between Ovid''s Metamorphoses and Alain Robbe-Grillet''s objectivity, discovering the origins of science fiction in the writings of Cyrano de Bergerac, or convincing us that the Italian novelist Carlo Emilio Gadda''s works are like artichokes, Calvino offers a new perspective on beloved favorites and introduces us to hidden gems. "This book serves as a welcome reminder that the great works are great because they can mean so much to readers, and Calvino is a most knowledgeable guide to all the best destinations."— San Francisco Chronicle

"These three stories, set during the summer of 1940, draw on Italo Calvino''s memories of his own adolescence during the Second World War, too young to be forced to fight in Mussolini''s army but old enough to be conscripted into the Italian youth brigades. The callow narrator of these tales observes the mounting unease of a city girding itself for war, the looting of an occupied French town, and nighttime revels during a blackout. Appearing here in its first English translation, Into the War is one of Calvino''s only works of autobiographical fiction. It offers both a glimpse of this writer''s extraordinary life and a distilled dram of his wry, ingenious literary voice."--from cover, page [4].

Numbers in the Dark is a collection of short stories covering the length of Italo Calvino''s extraordinary writing career, from when he was a teenager to shortly before his death. They include witty allegories and wise fables; a town where everything has been forbidden apart from the game of tip-cat; a pitiable tribe watching the flight paths of guided missiles from outside their mud huts; a computer programmer considering the possible sequence of a series of brutal acts; and dialogues with Henry Ford, a Neanderthal and the gloomy, overthrown Montezuma ... Italo Calvino, one of Italy''s finest postwar writers, has delighted readers around the world with his deceptively simple, fable-like stories. Calvino was born in Cuba in 1923 and raised in San Remo, Italy; he fought for the Italian Resistance from 1943-45. His major works include Cosmicomics (1968), Invisible Cities (1972), and If on a winter''s night a traveler (1979). He died in Siena in1985, of a brain hemorrhage.

Published for the first time in English, a final collection of essays by the renowned fabulist writer tours the visual world through explorations of subjects ranging from cuneiform and antique maps to Mexican temples and Japanese gardens.

This is the first collection in English of the extraordinary letters of one of the great writers of the twentieth century. Italy''s most important postwar novelist, Italo Calvino (1923-1985) achieved worldwide fame with such books as Cosmicomics, Invisible Cities, and If on a winter''s night a traveler. But he was also an influential literary critic, an important literary editor, and a masterful letter writer whose correspondents included Umberto Eco, Primo Levi, Gore Vidal, Leonardo Sciascia, Natalia Ginzburg, Michelangelo Antonioni, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Luciano Berio.

El protagonista de La nube de smog lucha sin ilusión contra una de las grandes amenazas de las sociedades industrializadas: la contaminación atmosférica. Decidido a conservar la lucidez, su actitud no le impide indagar en la opaca realidad que le rodea. «La nube de smog es un relato continuamente tentado por convertirse en algo distinto: ensayo sociológico o diario íntimo; pero ante esas tentaciones [el autor] consigue oponer siempre su táctica defensiva, a base de gags cómicos y de encogerse de hombros, lo que le permite permanecer suspendido en ese clima que le es tan propio, entre transfiguración simbólica, actualidad extraída de lo real, desahogos de humor y poema en prosa. Imagen e ideograma del mundo al que tenemos que hacer frente es el smog, la niebla humosa y cargada de detritos químicos de las ciudades industriales. Cada uno de sus personajes tiene su propia manera de contraponerse a ella. En medio de ellos, el anónimo protagonista parece rechazar toda ilusoria evasión y toda transposición ideal, y se obstina en mirar las cosas como son, en mirar sin apartar nunca la vista. Si algo él se espera, es únicamente de aquello que ve, una imagen que contraponer a otra imagen; y el relato se cierra sin asegurarnos que la haya encontrado, limitándose a no excluir que sea posible encontrarla.»Italo Calvino

When a nobleman is split in two, his separate halves pursue different adventures in a fantastically macabre tale by the author of Invisible Cities. It is the seventeenth century, and the Viscount Medardo of Terralba must go into battle against the Turks. But the inexperienced warrior is soon bisected lengthwise by a cannonball. Through a miracle of stitching, one half of him survives, returning to his feudal estate to lead a lavishly evil life. But soon his other, virtuous half appears—also very much alive. When the two halves become rivals for the love of the same woman, there''s no telling the lengths each will go to in order to win. Now available in an independent volume for the first time, this deliciously bizarre novella of is Calvino at his most devious and winning.

La voz del caballero Agilulfo llegaba metálica desde dentro del yelmo cerrado, como si no fuera una garganta sino la propia chapa de la armadura la que vibrase. Y es que, en efecto, la armadura estaba hueca, Agilulfo no existía. Solo a costa de fuerza de voluntad, de convicción, había logrado forjarse una identidad para combatir contra los infieles en el ejército de Carlomagno. Agilulfo puso todas sus fuerzas en un orden deseado y lo hizo con tal sentido de la exactitud que consiguió robar el corazón a la altiva amazona Bradamante. En esta hermosa fábula sobre la identidad, sobre la diferencia entre ser y creer que se es, Calvino se pregunta la razón por la que un hombre es amado, por la que otro desea vengarse, por la que un tercero se considera hijo, amante, amigo o caballero. La respuesta se encuentra tal vez en la pregunta misma, en su melancolía y su extrañeza.

A spectacular display of this key European writer's early work This dazzling collection of stories follows the individual adventures of a varied cast of characters and masterfully illustrates Calvino's unique perspective and narrative gifts. As well as the thirteen tales from his Difficult Loves collection this volume also includes 'Smog', 'A Plunge into Real Estate' and 'The Argentine Ant'. 'The quirkiness and grace of the writing, the originality of the imagination at work, the occasional incandescence of vision, and a certain loveable nuttiness make this collection well worth reading' Margaret Atwood 'If this is not a masterpiece of twentieth-century prose writing, I cannot think of anything better' Gore Vidal on 'The Argentine Ant'

From one of modern literature’s most captivating and elusive masters comes a posthumous volume of thoughtful, elegant, and quick-witted autobiographical writings, all previously unpublished in English. Here is Italo Calvino paying homage to his literary influences and tracing the evolution of his signature style. Here are his reminiscences of Italy’s antifascist resistance and the frenzy of politics and ideas of the postwar era. The longest and most delightfully revealing section of the book is Calvino’s diary of his travels in the United States in 1959 and 1960, which show him marveling at color TV, wrinkling his nose at the Beats, and reeling at the outpouring of racial hatred attending a civil rights demonstration in Alabama. Overflowing with insight and amusement, Hermit in Paris is an invaluable addition to the Calvino legacy.

"Questo è il primo romanzo che ho scritto; quasi posso dire la prima cosa che ho scritto, se si eccettuano pochi racconti. Che impressione mi fa, a riprenderlo in mano adesso? Più che come un'opera mia la leggo come un libro nato anonimamente dal clima generale d'un'epoca, da una tensione morale, da un gusto letterario che era quello in cui la nostra generazione si riconosceva, dopo la fine della Seconda Guerra Mondiale" (dalla prefazione di Italo Calvino).

One of the world''s best storytellers, Italo Calvino (Invisible Cities) pinpoints for future generations the universal values for literature. Here are his works, methods, intentions, and hopes.

In these widely praised essays, Calvino reflects on literature as process, the great narrative game in the course of which writer and reader are challenged to understand the world. Calvino himself made the selection of pieces to be included in this volume. Translated by Patrick Creagh. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

Italo Calvino''s last fictional work is a witty, elegant, fantastic rendering of the ultimate observer, whose name, Mr. Palomar, deliberately evokes the famous telescope. "Beautiful, nimble, solitary feats of imagination" (The New York Times Book Review). Calvino is the acclaimed author of Difficult Loves and Invisible Cities.

The world of Calvino is a world of fable, but he uses its mechanisms to focus with unerring precision on human reality. Nature in these stories has a magical quality in the flight of a crow, the iridescent track of a snail, the sideways leap of a stray cat but the magic can encompass both enchantment and terror.

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) Introduction by Peter Washington; Translation by William Weaver Italo Calvino''s masterpiece combines a love story and a detective story into an exhilarating allegory of reading, in which the reader of the book becomes the book''s central character. Based on a witty analogy between the reader''s desire to finish the story and the lover''s desire to consummate his or her passion, IF ON A WINTER''S NIGHT A TRAVELER is the tale of two bemused readers whose attempts to reach the end of the same book--IF ON A WINTER''S NIGHT A TRAVELER, by Italo Calvino, of course--are constantly and comically frustrated. In between chasing missing chapters of the book, the hapless readers tangle with an international conspiracy, a rogue translator, an elusive novelist, a disintegrating publishing house, and several oppressive governments. The result is a literary labyrinth of storylines that interrupt one another--an Arabian Nights of the postmodern age.

Italo Calvino''s classic, multifaceted novel about writing and readers.

Retells two hundred traditional Italian tales, including the stories of a fearless little man, a prince who married a frog, and a woman who lived on wind.