Italo Calvino

"Calvino" redirects here. For other uses, seeCalvino (disambiguation).

Italo Calvino
Born	Italo Giovanni Calvino Mameli (1923-10-15)15 October 1923 Santiago de Las Vegas,Cuba
Died	19 September 1985(1985-09-19)(aged 61) Siena,Tuscany,Italy
Resting place	Garden cemetery ofCastiglione della Pescaia,Italy
Occupation	Writer, journalist
Nationality	Italian
Literary movement	Oulipo,neorealism,Postmodernism
Notable works	The Baron in the Trees Invisible Cities If on a winter's night a traveler Six Memos for the Next Millennium
Spouse	Esther Judith Singer
Children	Giovanna

Italo Calvino(/kælˈviːnoʊ/,alsoUS:/kɑːlˈ-/,Italian:[ˈiːtalokalˈviːno];15 October 1923 – 19 September 1985) was an Italian writer and journalist. His best-known works include theOur Ancestorstrilogy (1952–1959), theCosmicomicscollection of short stories (1965), and the novelsInvisible Cities(1972) andIf on a winter's night a traveler(1979).

Admired in Britain, Australia and the United States, Calvino was the most translated contemporary Italian writer at the time of his death.He is buried in the garden cemetery ofCastiglione della PescaiainTuscany.

Biography

Parents

Italo Calvino was born inSantiago de las Vegas,a suburb ofHavana,Cuba, in 1923. His father, Mario, was a tropicalagronomistandbotanistwho also taught agriculture andfloriculture.Born 47 years earlier inSanremo,Italy, Mario Calvino had emigrated toMexicoin 1909 where he took up an important position with theMinistry of Agriculture.In an autobiographical essay, Italo Calvino explained that his father "had been in his youth ananarchist,a follower ofKropotkinand then a Socialist Reformist ".In 1917, Mario left for Cuba to conduct scientific experiments, after living through theMexican Revolution.

Calvino's mother, Giuliana Luigia Evelina "Eva" Mameli, was a botanist and university professor.A native ofSassariin Sardinia and 11 years younger than her husband, she married while still a junior lecturer atPavia University.Born into a secular family, Eva was apacifisteducated in the "religion of civic duty and science".Eva gave Calvino his unusual first name to remind him of his Italian heritage, although since he would end up growing up in Italy after all, Calvino thought his name sounded "belligerently nationalist".Calvino described his parents as being "very different in personality from one another",suggesting perhaps deeper tensions behind a comfortable, albeit strict,middle-classupbringing devoid of conflict. As an adolescent, he found it hard to relate topovertyand theworking-class,and was "ill at ease" with his parents' openness to the labourers who filed into his father's study on Saturdays to receive their weekly paycheck.

Early life and education

In 1925, less than two years after Calvino's birth, the family returned to Italy and settled permanently inSanremoon theLiguriancoast. Calvino's brother Floriano, who became a distinguished geologist, was born in 1927. The family divided their time between the Villa Meridiana, an experimental floriculture station which also served as their home, and Mario's ancestral land at San Giovanni Battista. On this small working farm set in the hills behind Sanremo, Mario pioneered the cultivation of the then exotic fruits such asavocadoandgrapefruit,eventually obtaining an entry in theDizionario biografico degli italianifor his achievements. The vast forests and luxuriant fauna omnipresent in Calvino's early fiction such asThe Baron in the Treesderive from this "legacy". In an interview, Calvino stated that "San Remo continues to pop out in my books, in the most diverse pieces of writing."

Calvino and Floriano would climb the tree-rich estate and perch for hours on the branches reading their favourite adventure stories.Less salubrious aspects of this "paternal legacy" are described inThe Road to San Giovanni,Calvino's memoir of his father in which he exposes their inability to communicate: "Talking to each other was difficult. Both verbose by nature, possessed of an ocean of words, in each other's presence we became mute, would walk in silence side by side along the road to San Giovanni."A fan ofRudyard Kipling'sThe Jungle Bookas a child, Calvino felt that his early interest in stories made him the "black sheep" of a family that held literature in less esteem than the sciences. Fascinated by American movies and cartoons, he was equally attracted to drawing, poetry, and theatre. On a darker note, Calvino recalled that his earliest memory was of aMarxistprofessor who had been brutally assaulted byBenito Mussolini'sBlackshirts.He said: "I remember clearly that we were at dinner when the old professor came in with his face beaten up and bleeding, his bowtie all torn up over it, asking for help."

Other legacies include the parents' beliefs inFreemasonry,republicanismwith elements ofanarchismandMarxism.Austere freethinkers with an intense hatred of the rulingNational Fascist Party,Eva and Mario also refused to give their sons any education in the Catholic Faith or any other religion.Italo attended the English nursery school St George's College, followed by a Protestant elementary private school run byWaldensians.His secondary schooling, with a classicallyceumcurriculum, was completed at the state-run Liceo Gian Domenico Cassini where, at his parents' request, he was exempted from religion classes but frequently asked to justify his anti-conformism to teachers, janitors, and fellow pupils.In his mature years, Calvino described the experience as having made him "tolerant of others' opinions, particularly in the field of religion, remembering how irksome it was to hear myself mocked because I did not follow the majority's beliefs".In 1938,Eugenio Scalfari,who went on to found the weekly magazineL'EspressoandLa Repubblica,a major Italian newspaper, came fromCivitavecchiato join the same class though a year younger, and they shared the same desk.The two teenagers formed a lasting friendship, Calvino attributing his political awakening to their university discussions. Seated together "on a huge flat stone in the middle of a stream near our land",he and Scalfari founded a university movement called the MUL. Eva managed to delay her son's enrolment in the Party's armed scouts, theBalilla Moschettieri,and then arranged that he be excused, as a non-Catholic, from performing devotional acts in Church.But later on, as a compulsory member, he could not avoid the assemblies and parades of theAvanguardisti,and was forced to participate in the Italian invasion of theFrench Rivierain June 1940.

World War II

In 1941, Calvino enrolled at theUniversity of Turin,choosing the Agriculture Faculty where his father had previously taught courses inagronomy.Concealing his literary ambitions to please his family, he passed four exams in his first year while reading anti-Fascist works byElio Vittorini,Eugenio Montale,Cesare Pavese,Johan Huizinga,and Pisacane, and works byMax Planck,Werner Heisenberg,andAlbert Einsteinon physics.Calvino's real aspiration was to be a playwright. His letters toEugenio Scalfarioverflow with references to Italian and foreign plays, and with plots and characters of future theatrical projects.Luigi PirandelloandGabriele D'Annunzio,Cesare Vico Lodovici andUgo Betti,Eugene O'NeillandThornton Wilderare among the main authors Calvino cites as his sources of inspiration.Disdainful of Turin students, Calvino saw himself as enclosed in a "provincial shell"that offered the illusion of immunity from the Fascist nightmare: "We were ‘hard guys’ from the provinces, hunters, snooker-players, show-offs, proud of our lack of intellectual sophistication, contemptuous of any patriotic or military rhetoric, coarse in our speech, regulars in the brothels, dismissive of any romantic sentiment and desperately devoid of women."

Calvino transferred to theUniversity of Florencein 1943 and reluctantly passed three more exams in agriculture. By the end of the year, the Germans had succeeded in occupying Liguria and setting upBenito Mussolini's puppetRepublic of Salòin northern Italy. Now twenty years old, Calvino refused military service and went into hiding. Reading intensely in a wide array of subjects, he also reasoned politically that, of all thepartisangroupings, thecommunistswere the best organized with "the most convincing political line".

In spring 1944, Eva encouraged her sons to enter theItalian Resistancein the name of "natural justice and family virtues".Using the nom de guerre "Santiago", Calvino joined theGaribaldi Brigades,a clandestine Communist group and, for twenty months, endured the fighting in theMaritime Alpsuntil 1945 and theLiberation.As a result of his refusal to be a conscript, his parents were held hostage by theNazisfor an extended period at the Villa Meridiana. Calvino wrote of his mother's ordeal that "she was an example of tenacity and courage… behaving with dignity and firmness before theSSand the Fascist militia, and in her long detention as a hostage, not least when theblackshirtsthree times pretended to shoot my father in front of her eyes. The historical events which mothers take part in acquire the greatness and invincibility of natural phenomena ".

Turin and communism

Calvino settled inTurinin 1945, after a long hesitation over living there or inMilan.He often humorously belittled this choice, describing Turin as a "city that is serious but sad". Returning to university, he abandoned Agriculture for the Arts Faculty. A year later, he was initiated into the literary world byElio Vittorini,who published his short story"Andato al comando"(1945; "Gone to Headquarters" ) inIl Politecnico,a Turin-based weekly magazine associated with the university.The horror of the war had not only provided the raw material for his literary ambitions but deepened his commitment to the Communist cause. Viewing civilian life as a continuation of the partisan struggle, he confirmed his membership in theItalian Communist Party.On readingVladimir Lenin'sState and Revolution,he plunged into post-war political life, associating himself chiefly with the worker's movement in Turin.

In 1947, he graduated with a Master's thesis onJoseph Conrad,wrote short stories in his spare time, and landed a job in the publicity department at the Einaudi publishing house run byGiulio Einaudi.Although brief, his stint put him in regular contact withCesare Pavese,Natalia Ginzburg,Norberto Bobbio,and many other left-wing intellectuals and writers. He then left Einaudi to work as a journalist for the official Communist daily,l'Unità,and the newborn Communist political magazine,Rinascita.During this period, Pavese and poetAlfonso Gattowere Calvino's closest friends and mentors.

His first novel,Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno(The Path to the Nest of Spiders) written with valuable editorial advice from Pavese, won the Premio Riccione on publication in 1947.With sales topping 5000 copies, a surprise success in postwar Italy, the novel inaugurated Calvino'sneorealistperiod. In a clairvoyant essay, Pavese praised the young writer as a "squirrel of the pen" who "climbed into the trees, more for fun than fear, to observe partisan life as a fable of the forest".In 1948, he interviewed one of his literary idols,Ernest Hemingway,travelling withNatalia Ginzburgto his home inStresa.

Ultimo viene il corvo(The Crow Comes Last), a collection of stories based on his wartime experiences, was published to acclaim in 1949. Despite the triumph, Calvino grew increasingly worried by his inability to compose a worthy second novel. He returned to Einaudi in 1950, responsible this time for the literary volumes. He eventually became a consulting editor, a position that allowed him to hone his writing talent, discover new writers, and develop into "a reader of texts".In late 1951, presumably to advance in the Communist Party, he spent two months in theSoviet Unionas a correspondent forl'Unità.While in Moscow, he learned of his father's death on 25 October. The articles and correspondence he produced from this visit were published in 1952, winning the Saint-Vincent Prize for journalism.

Over a seven-year period, Calvino wrote three realist novels,The White Schooner(1947–1949),Youth in Turin(1950–1951), andThe Queen's Necklace(1952–54), but all were deemed defective.Calvino's first efforts as a fictionist were marked with his experience in the Italian resistance during the Second World War, however, his acclamation as a writer of fantastic stories came in the 1950s.During the eighteen months it took to completeI giovani del Po(Youth in Turin), he made an important self-discovery: "I began doing what came most naturally to me – that is, following the memory of the things I had loved best since boyhood. Instead of making myself write the book Ioughtto write, the novel that was expected of me, I conjured up the book I myself would have liked to read, the sort by an unknown writer, from another age and another country, discovered in an attic. "The result wasIl visconte dimezzato(1952;The Cloven Viscount) composed in 30 days between July and September 1951. The protagonist, a seventeenth-century viscount sundered in two by a cannonball, incarnated Calvino's growing political doubts and the divisive turbulence of theCold War.Skilfully interweaving elements of thefableand thefantasygenres, theallegoricalnovel launched him as a modern "fabulist".In 1954, Giulio Einaudi commissioned hisFiabe italiane(1956;Italian Folktales) on the basis of the question, "Is there an Italian equivalent of theBrothers Grimm?"For two years, Calvino collated tales found in 19th century collections across Italy then translated 200 of the finest from various dialects into Italian. Key works he read at this time wereVladimir Propp'sMorphology of the FolktaleandHistorical Roots of Russian Fairy Tales,stimulating his own ideas on the origin, shape and function of the story.

In 1952 Calvino wrote withGiorgio BassaniforBotteghe Oscure,a magazine named after the popular name of the party's head offices in Rome. He also worked forIl Contemporaneo,aMarxistweekly.

From 1955 to 1958 Calvino had an affair with Italian actressElsa De Giorgi,a married, older woman. Excerpts of the hundreds of love letters Calvino wrote to her were published in theCorriere della Serain 2004, causing some controversy.

After communism

In 1957, disillusioned by the 1956Soviet invasion of Hungary,Calvino left the Italian Communist Party. In his letter of resignation published inl'Unitàon 7 August, he explained the reason for his dissent (the violent suppression of the Hungarian uprising and the revelation ofJoseph Stalin's crimes) while confirming his "confidence in the democratic perspectives" of world Communism.He withdrew from taking an active role in politics and never joined another party.Ostracized by the PCI party leaderPalmiro Togliattiand his supporters on publication ofBecalmed in the Antilles(La gran bonaccia delle Antille), a satirical allegory of the party's immobilism, Calvino began writingThe Baron in the Trees.Completed in three months and published in 1957, the fantasy is based on the "problem of the intellectual's political commitment at a time of shattered illusions".He found new outlets for his periodic writings in the journalsCittà apertaandTempo presente,the magazinePassato e presente,and the weeklyItalia Domani.With Vittorini in 1959, he became co-editor of'Il Menabò,a cultural journal devoted to literature in the modern industrial age, a position he held until 1966.

Despite severe restrictions in the US against foreigners holding communist views, Calvino was allowed to visit the United States, where he stayed six months from 1959 to 1960 (four of which he spent in New York), after an invitation by theFord Foundation.Calvino was particularly impressed by the "New World": "Naturally I visited the South and also California, but I always felt a New Yorker. My city is New York." The letters he wrote to Einaudi describing this visit to the United States were first published as "American Diary 1959–1960" inHermit in Parisin 2003.

In 1962 Calvino met Argentinian translator Esther Judith Singer ( "Chichita" ) and married her in 1964 inHavana,during a trip in which he visited his birthplace and was introduced toErnesto "Che" Guevara.On 15 October 1967, a few days after Guevara's death, Calvino wrote a tribute to him that was published in Cuba in 1968, and in Italy thirty years later.He and his wife settled in Rome in via Monte Brianzo where their daughter, Giovanna, was born in 1965. Once again working for Einaudi, Calvino began publishing some of his "Cosmicomics"inIl Caffè,a literary magazine.

Later life and work

Vittorini's death in 1966 greatly affected Calvino. He went through what he called an "intellectual depression", which the writer himself described as an important passage in his life: "I ceased to be young. Perhaps it's a metabolic process, something that comes with age, I'd been young for a long time, perhaps too long, suddenly I felt that I had to begin my old age, yes, old age, perhaps with the hope of prolonging it by beginning it early."

Amid the atmosphere that would evolve into 1968's cultural revolution (theFrench May), he and his family moved to Paris in 1967, taking up residence in a villa in the Square de Châtillon. Nicknamedl'ironique amusé,Calvino was invited byRaymond Queneauin 1968 to join theOulipo(Ouvroir de littérature potentielle) group of experimental writers where he metRoland BarthesandGeorges Perec,who would influence his later work.That same year, he turned down theViareggio PrizeforTi con zero(Time and the Hunter) on the grounds that it was an award given by "institutions emptied of meaning".He accepted, however, both the Asti Prize and theFeltrinelli Prizefor his writing in 1970 and 1972, respectively. In two autobiographical essays published in 1962 and 1970, Calvino described himself as "atheist" and his outlook as "non-religious".

The catalogue of forms is endless: until every shape has found its city, new cities will continue to be born. When the forms exhaust their variety and come apart, the end of cities begins.

FromInvisible Cities(1974)

Calvino had more significant contact with the academic world, notably at theSorbonne(with Barthes) and the University ofUrbino.His literary interests spanned multiple periods, genres, and languages, includingHonoré de Balzac,Ludovico Ariosto,Dante,Ignatius of Loyola,Cervantes,Shakespeare,Cyrano de Bergerac,andGiacomo Leopardi.

Between 1972 and 1973, Calvino published two short stories, "The Name, the Nose" and theOulipo-inspired "The Burning of the Abominable House",in the Italian edition ofPlayboy.He also became a regular contributor to the Italian newspaperCorriere della Sera.During this period, Calvino spent his summer vacations in a house constructed in the pinewood ofRoccamare,inCastiglione della Pescaia,Tuscany.

In 1975, Calvino was made an Honorary Member of theAmerican Academy.Awarded theAustrian State Prize for European Literaturein 1976, he visited Mexico, Japan, and the United States, where he gave a series of lectures in several American cities. After his mother died in 1978 at the age of 92, Calvino sold Villa Meridiana, the family home in San Remo. Two years later, he moved to Rome in Piazza Campo Marzio near thePantheonand began editing the work ofTommaso Landolfifor Rizzoli. Awarded the FrenchLégion d'honneurin 1981, he also accepted the role of jury president for the38thVenice Film Festival.

During the summer of 1985, Calvino prepared a series of texts on literature for theCharles Eliot Norton Lecturesto be delivered atHarvard Universityin the fall. On 6 September, he was admitted to the hospital ofSanta Maria della ScalainSiena(now a museum) where he died during the night between 18 and 19 September of acerebral haemorrhage.His lecture notes were published posthumously in Italian in 1988 and in English asSix Memos for the Next Millenniumin 1993.

Authors he helped publish

• Mario Rigoni Stern
• Gianni Celati
• Andrea De Carlo
• Daniele Del Giudice
• Leonardo Sciascia

Selected publications

A selected bibliography of Calvino's writings follows, listing the works that have been published in English translation, along with a few major untranslated works. More exhaustive bibliographies can be found inMartin McLaughlin'sItalo Calvinoand Beno Weiss'sUnderstanding Italo Calvino.

Fiction

Title	Original publication	English translation	Translator
Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno The Path to the Nest of Spiders The Path to the Spiders' Nests	1947	1957 1998	Archibald Colquhoun Martin McLaughlin
Il visconte dimezzato The Cloven Viscount	1952	1962	Archibald Colquhoun
La formica argentina The Argentine Ant	1952	1957	Archibald Colquhoun
Fiabe italiane Italian Fables Italian Folk Tales Italian Folktales	1956	1961 1975 1980	Louis Brigante Sylvia Mulcahy George Martin
Il barone rampante The Baron in the Trees	1957	1959	Archibald Colquhoun
La speculazione edilizia A Plunge into Real Estate	1957	1984	D. S. Carne-Ross
Il cavaliere inesistente The Nonexistent Knight	1959	1962	Archibald Colquhoun
La giornata d'uno scrutatore The Watcher	1963	1971	William Weaver
Marcovaldo ovvero le stagioni in città Marcovaldo or the Seasons in the City	1963	1983	William Weaver
La nuvola di smog Smog	1965	1971	William Weaver
Le cosmicomiche Cosmicomics	1965	1968	William Weaver
Ti con zero t zero(also published as Time and the Hunter)	1967	1969	William Weaver
Il castello dei destini incrociati The Castle of Crossed Destinies	1969	1977	William Weaver
Gli amori difficili Difficult Loves(also the title of 2 different collections)	1970	1984	William Weaver
Le città invisibili Invisible Cities	1972	1974	William Weaver
Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore If on a winter's night a traveler	1979	1981	William Weaver
Palomar Mr. Palomar	1983	1985	William Weaver

Fiction collections

Title	Original publication	English translation	Translator
Ultimo viene il corvo The Crow Comes Last	1949	–	–
30 short stories (some of these stories appear inAdam, One Afternoon,and other collections).
– Adam, One Afternoon and Other Stories	–	1957	Archibald Colquhoun, Peggy Wright
21 short stories: Adam, One Afternoon; The Enchanted Garden; Father to Son; A Goatherd at Luncheon; Leaving Again Shortly; The House of the Beehives; Fear on the Footpath; Hunger at Bévera; Going to Headquarters; The Crow Comes Last; One of the Three is Still Alive; Animal Wood; Theft in a Cake Shop; Dollars and the Demi-Mondaine; Sleeping Like Dogs; Desire in November; A Judgment; The Cat and the Policeman; Who Put the Mine in the Sea?; The Argentine Ant.
I nostri antenati Our Ancestors	1960	1962	Archibald Colquhoun
3 novels:The Cloven Viscount;The Baron in the Trees;The Nonexistent Knight.
– The Watcher and Other Stories	–	1971	Archibald Colquhoun, William Weaver
1 novella, 2 short stories: The Watcher; The Argentine Ant; Smog.
– Difficult Loves	–	1983	William Weaver, D. S. Carne-Ross
3 novellas:Difficult Loves;Smog;A Plunge into Real Estate.
– Difficult Loves	–	1984	William Weaver, Archibald Colquhoun, Peggy Wright
The novella,Difficult Loves,and 20 short stories: Adam, One Afternoon; The Enchanted Garden; A Goatherd at Luncheon; The House of the Beehives; Big Fish, Little Fish; A Ship Loaded with Crabs; Man in the Wasteland; Lazy Sons; Fear on the Footpath; Hunger at Bévera; Going to Headquarters; The Crow Comes Last; One of the Three Is Still Alive; Animal Woods; Mine Field; Theft in a Pastry Shop; Dollars and the Demimondaine; Sleeping like Dogs; Desire in November; Transit Bed.
Sotto il sole giaguaro Under the Jaguar Sun	1986	1988	William Weaver
3 short stories: Under the Jaguar Sun; A King Listens; The Name, The Nose.
Prima che tu dica 'Pronto' Numbers in the Dark and Other Stories	1993	1996	Tim Parks
37 short stories: The Man Who Shouted Teresa; The Flash; Making Do; Dry River; Conscience; Solidarity; The Black Sheep; Good for Nothing; Like a Flight of Ducks; Love Far from Home; Wind in a City; The Lost Regiment; Enemy Eyes; A General in the Library; The Workshop Hen; Numbers in the Dark; The Queen's Necklace; Becalmed in the Antilles; The Tribe with Its Eyes on the Sky; Nocturnal Soliloquy of a Scottish Nobleman; A Beautiful March Day; World Memory; Beheading the Heads;The Burning of the Abominable House;The Petrol Pump; Neanderthal Man; Montezuma; Before You Say 'Hello'; Glaciation; The Call of the Water; The Mirror, the Target; The Other Eurydice; The Memoirs of Casanova; Henry Ford; The Last Channel; Implosion; Nothing and Not Much.
Tutte le cosmicomiche The Complete Cosmicomics	1997	2009	Martin McLaughlin, Tim Parks, William Weaver
The collectionsCosmicomicsandt zero,4 stories fromNumbers in the Dark and Other Stories,and 7 stories newly translated by Martin McLaughlin.
L'entrata in guerra Into the War	1954	2011	Martin McLaughlin
Trio of stories:'Into the War', 'The Avanguardisti in Menton', 'UNPA Nights'. Into the War is Calvino at his autobiographical best, combining brilliantly recollected memory with compelling wit and perfect prose.

Essays and other writings

Title	Original publication	English translation	Translator
Orlando FuriosodiLudovico Ariosto –	1970	–	–
An interpretation of the epic poem, and selections.
Autobiografia di uno spettatore Autobiography of a Spectator	1974	–	–
Preface toFellini'sQuattro film(Four Films).
Introduction to Faits divers de la terre et du ciel bySilvina Ocampo –	1974	–	–
With a preface byJorge Luis Borges.
Una pietra sopra: Discorsi di letteratura e società The Uses of Literature (also published as The Literature Machine)	1980	1986	Patrick Creagh
Essays on literature.
Racconti fantastici dell'ottocento Fantastic Tales	1983	1997	?
Anthology of classic supernatural stories.
Science et métaphore chez Galilée Science and Metaphor inGalileo Galilei	1983	–	–
Lectures given at theÉcole des hautes étudesin Paris.
The Written and the Unwritten Word	1983	1983	William Weaver
Lecture at theNew York Institute for the Humanitieson 30 March 1983
Collezione di sabbia Collection of Sand	1984	2013	Martin McLaughlin
Journalistic essays from 1974–1984
Lezioni americane: Sei proposte per il prossimo millennio Six Memos for the Next Millennium	1988	1993	Patrick Creagh
Originally prepared for theCharles Eliot Norton Lectures.On the values of literature.
Sulla fiaba –	1988	–	–
Essays on fables.
I libri degli altri. Lettere 1947–1981 –	1991	–	–
Letters that Calvino wrote to other authors, whilst he worked at Einaudi.
Perché leggere i classici Why Read the Classics?	1991	1993	Martin McLaughlin
Essays on classic literature.

Autobiographical works

Title	Original publication	English translation	Translator
La strada di San Giovanni The Road to San Giovanni	1990	1993	Tim Parks
Eremita a Parigi. Pagine autobiografiche Hermit in Paris	1994	2003	Martin McLaughlin
Album Calvino	1995	none	none

Libretti

Title	Original performance
La panchina. Opera in un atto The Bench: One-Act Opera	1956
Libretto for the opera bySergio Liberovici.
La vera storia	1982
Libretto for the opera byLuciano Berio.
Un re in ascolto A King Listens	1984
Libretto for the opera by Luciano Berio, based on Calvino's 1977 short story "A King Listens".

Translations

Original Title Translated title	Original Author	Original publication	Translated publication
Les fleurs bleues I fiori blu	Raymond Queneau	1965	1967
Le chant du Styrène La canzone del polistirene	Raymond Queneau	1958	1985

Selected filmography

• Boccaccio '70,1962 (co-wrote screenplay of "Renzo e Luciano" segment directed byMario Monicelli)
• L'Amore difficile,1963 (wrote "L'avventura di un soldato" segment directed byNino Manfredi)
• Tiko and the Shark,1964 (co-wrote screenplay directed byFolco Quilici)

Film and television adaptations

• The Nonexistent KnightbyPino Zac,1969 (Italian animated film based on the novel)
• Amores dificilesby Ana Luisa Ligouri, 1983 (13' Mexican short)
• L'Aventure d'une baigneuseby Philippe Donzelot, 1991 (14' French short based onThe Adventure of a BatherinDifficult Loves)
• FantaghiròbyLamberto Bava,1991 (TV adaptation based onFanta-Ghirò the BeautifulinItalian Folktales)
• PalookavillebyAlan Taylor,1995 (American film based onTheft in a Cake Shop,Desire in November,andTransit Bed)
• Solidarityby Nancy Kiang, 2006 (10' American short)
• Conscienceby Yu-Hsiu Camille Chen, 2009 (10' Australian short)
• "La Luna"by Enrico Casarosa, 2011 (American short loosely based on"The Distance of the Moon "fromCosmicomics.)

Films on Calvino

• Damian Pettigrew,Lo specchio di Calvino,2012Archived4 May 2023 at theWayback Machine.Co-produced byArte France,Italy'sMinistero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali,and theNational Film Board of Canada,the feature-lengthdocufictionstarsNeri Marcorèas the Italian writer alongside distinguished literary criticPietro Citati.The film also uses in-depth interviews conducted at Calvino's Rome residence a year before his death in 1985 and rare footage fromRAI,INA(Institut national de l'audiovisuel),andBBCtelevision archives.The 52-minute French version titled,Dans la peau d'Italo Calvino( "Being Italo Calvino" ), was broadcast by Arte France on 19 December 2012 and Sky Arte (Italy) on 14 October 2013.

Legacy

TheScuola Italiana Italo Calvino,an Italian curriculum school in Moscow, Russia, is named after him. A crater on the planet Mercury, Calvino, and a main-belt asteroid,22370 Italocalvino,are also named after him.Salt Hill JournalandUniversity of Louisvilleaward annually the Italo Calvino Prize "for a work of fiction written in the fabulist experimental style of Italo Calvino".

Kai Nieminen (b. 1953) wrote his flute concerto (2001) based on the story ofMr. Palomar.The text was written to the dedicatee,Patrick Gallois.

Awards

• 1946 –l'UnitàPrize (shared with Marcello Venturi) for the short story,Minefield(Campo di mine)
• 1947 – Riccione Prize forThe Path to the Nest of Spiders
• 1952 – Saint-Vincent Prize
• 1957 –Viareggio PrizeforThe Baron in the Trees
• 1959 –Bagutta Prize
• 1960 – Salento Prize forOur Ancestors
• 1963 – International Charles Veillon Prize forThe Watcher
• 1970 – Asti Prize
• 1974 - Prix Médicis étranger forInvisible Cities
• 1972 –Feltrinelli PrizeforInvisible Cities
• 1976 –Austrian State Prize for European Literature
• 1982 –World Fantasy Award– Life Achievement

Sources

Primary sources

• Calvino, Italo.Adam, One Afternoon(trans. Archibald Colquhoun, Peggy Wright). London: Minerva, 1992.
• —.The Castle of Crossed Destinies(trans.William Weaver). London: Secker & Warburg, 1977
• —.Cosmicomics(trans. William Weaver). London: Picador, 1993.
• —.The Crow Comes Last(Ultimo viene il corvo). Turin: Einaudi, 1949.
• —.Difficult Loves. Smog. A Plunge into Real Estate(trans. William Weaver, Donald Selwyn Carne-Ross). London: Picador, 1985.
• —.Hermit in Paris(trans. Martin McLaughlin). London: Jonathan Cape, 2003.
• —.If on a winter's night a traveller(trans. William Weaver). London: Vintage, 1998.ISBN0-919630-23-5
• —.Invisible Cities(trans. William Weaver). London: Secker & Warburg, 1974.
• —.Italian Fables(trans. Louis Brigante). New York: Collier, 1961. (50 tales)
• —.Italian Folk Tales(trans. Sylvia Mulcahy). London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1975. (24 tales)
• —.Italian Folktales(trans. George Martin). Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1980. (complete 200 tales)
• —.Marcovaldo or the Seasons in the City(trans. William Weaver). London: Minerva, 1993.
• —.Mr. Palomar(trans. William Weaver). London: Vintage, 1999.
• —.Our Ancestors(trans. A. Colquhoun). London: Vintage, 1998.
• —.The Path to the Nest of Spiders(trans. Archibald Colquhoun). Boston: Beacon, 1957.
• —.The Path to the Spiders' Nests(trans. A. Colquhoun, revised by Martin McLaughlin). London: Jonathan Cape, 1993.
• —.t zero(trans. William Weaver). New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1969.
• —.The Road to San Giovanni(trans. Tim Parks). New York: Vintage International, 1993.
• —.Six Memos for the Next Millennium(trans. Patrick Creagh). New York: Vintage International, 1993.
• —.The Watcher and Other Stories(trans. William Weaver). New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1971.

Secondary sources

• Barenghi, Mario, and Bruno Falcetto.Romanzi e racconti di Italo Calvino.Milano: Mondadori, 1991.
• Bernardini Napoletano, Francesca.I segni nuovi di Italo Calvino.Rome: Bulzoni, 1977.
• Bonura, Giuseppe.Invito alla lettura di Calvino.Milan: U. Mursia, 1972.
• Calvino, Italo.Uno scrittore pomeridiano: Intervista sull'arte della narrativaa cura diWilliam WeavereDamian Pettigrewcon un ricordo diPietro Citati.Rome: minimum fax, 2003.ISBN978-88-87765-86-1.
• Corti, Maria. 'Intervista: Italo Calvino' inAutografo 2(October 1985): 47–53.
• Di Carlo, Franco.Come leggere I nostri antenati.Milan: U. Mursia, 1958. (1998ISBN978-88-425-2215-7).
• McLaughlin, Martin.Italo Calvino.Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998.ISBN978-0-7486-0735-8(pb.ISBN978-0-7486-0917-8).
• Weiss, Beno.Understanding Italo Calvino.Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1993.ISBN978-0-87249-858-7.
• Anderson, Helen Victoria.Historical and detective fiction in Italy 1950-2006: Calvino,MalerbaandMancinelli.Oxford University, 2010.

Online sources

• Italo Calvino at Emory UniversityOnline Resources and Links
• Outside the Town of MalborkArchived16 October 2018 at theWayback MachineA Site for Italo Calvino
• The Words that FailedArchived16 August 2011 at theWayback MachineCalvino on Che Guevara
• http://atlantecalvino.unige.ch/Archived25 August 2019 at theWayback Machinevizualisation of Calvino's work by

Further reading

General

• Benussi, Cristina (1989).Introduzione a Calvino.Rome: Laterza.
• Bartoloni, Paolo (2003).Interstitial Writing: Calvino, Caproni, Sereni and Svevo.Leicester: Troubador.
• Bloom, Harold (ed.)(2002).Bloom's Major Short Story Writers: Italo Calvino.Broomall, Pennsylvania: Chelsea House.
• Bolongaro, Eugenio (2003).Italo Calvino and the Compass of Literature.Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
• Cannon, JoAnn (1981).Italo Calvino: Writer and Critic.Ravenna: Longo Press.
• Carter III, Albert Howard (1987).Italo Calvino: Metamorphoses of Fantasy.Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press.
• Chubb, Stephen (1997).I, Writer, I, Reader: the Concept of the Self in the Fiction of Italo Calvino.Leicester: Troubador.
• Gabriele, Tomassina (1994).Italo Calvino: Eros and Language.Teaneck, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
• Jeannet, Angela M. (2000)Under the Radiant Sun and the Crescent Moon.Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
• Markey, Constance (1999).Italo Calvino. A Journey Toward Postmodernism.Gainesville: Florida University Press.
• —. Interview. "Italo Calvino: The Contemporary Fabulist" inItalian Quarterly,23 (spring 1982): 77–85.
• Pilz, Kerstin (2005).Mapping Complexity: Literature and Science in the Works of Italo Calvino.Leicester: Troubador.

External links

• Italo Calvino at Emory UniversityArchived30 November 2005 at theWayback MachineOn-Line Resources and Links
• Damian Pettigrew,William Weaver(Fall 1992)."Italo Calvino, The Art of Fiction No. 130".Paris Review.Fall 1992 (124).Archivedfrom the original on 26 October 2010.Retrieved28 October2010.
• Italo Calvinoatperlentaucher.de – das Kulturmagazin(in German)
• Italo CalvinoatFind a Grave
• Italo CalvinoatIMDb

Excerpts, essays, artwork

• The Distance of the MoonArchived9 January 2022 at theWayback Machineread byLiev Schreiberin 2013
• If on a winter's night a travelerArchived6 November 2006 at theWayback MachineFirst chapter excerpts
• How Much Shall We Bet?at theWayback Machine(archived 6 September 2005) Chapter 8 ofCosmicomics
• Calvino on MythArchived11 August 2011 at theWayback Machine
• Calvino on Che Guevara
• In Calvino veritasEssays on Calvino