Italo Calvino: Letters, 1941-1985 - Updated Edition
- ISBN-10
- 0691162433
- ISBN-13
- 9780691162430
- Category
- Literary Collections
- Pages
- 640
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2014-05-04
- Publisher
- Princeton University Press
- Author
- Italo Calvino
Description
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. This book includes a generous selection of about 650 letters, written between World War II and the end of Calvino’s life. Selected and introduced by Michael Wood, the letters are expertly rendered into English and annotated by well-known Calvino translator Martin McLaughlin. The letters are filled with insights about Calvino’s writing and that of others; about Italian, American, English, and French literature; about literary criticism and literature in general; and about culture and politics. The book also provides a kind of autobiography, documenting Calvino’s Communism and his resignation from the party in 1957, his eye-opening trip to the United States in 1959-60, his move to Paris (where he lived from 1967 to 1980), and his trip to his birthplace in Cuba (where he met Che Guevara). Some lengthy letters amount almost to critical essays, while one is an appropriately brief defense of brevity, and there is an even shorter, reassuring note to his parents written on a scrap of paper while he and his brother were in hiding during the antifascist Resistance. This is a book that will fascinate and delight Calvino fans and anyone else interested in a remarkable portrait of a great writer at work.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
A Concordance to Conrad's Victory
By Todd K. Bender, James W. Parins, Robert J. Dilliganossession:-amā'the “oise: , ś head'ail but lying under her as deadly, ... seemed to undes stand, exactly how to deal with conceited death 's head.
-
Understanding Ingeborg Bachmann: Understanding Modern European and Latin American Literature
By Karen AchbergerSimilarly , Nadja in " Word for Word " is reluctant to call Mr. Frankel by his first name , Ludwig , an act which would signal an acceptance of his appropriateness for her , since Ludwig — like Robert , Ernst , Fritz , Erich , Franz ...
-
Bluegrass Cavalcade
By Thomas D. ClarkEllen went to Mrs. Donahue's house for help and Pius was soon hurrying to St. Lucy to telephone for a doctor. When Pius returned he brought the Carriers who remained all night. Bill and Pius helped the doctor set the bone and bind in ...
-
Anime Wong: Fictions of Performance
By Karen Tei YamashitaThe mother was on Donahue. 60 Minutes did the doc and they'll repeat the news at ten. People dying, people killing, people crying— you can see it all on TV. Reality is really on TV. It's just another way to see— starvation in North ...
-
Byron: The Erotic Liberal
By Jonathan David GrossPhilip P. Wiener . New York : Charles Scribner's Sons , 1973 . Plato . Plato : The Symposium . Trans . and ed . Alexander Nehemas and Paul Woodruff . Indianapolis : Hackett Publishing Company , 1989 . Plummer , Kenneth , ed .
-
Evening Street Review Number 5
By AMANDA ADAMS, ANDREA BATES, CYNTHIA BELMONTWhen the credits started to roll and Carmen, needing her meds and cigarettes, handed Ryan her car keys, Mary Ellen stared in disbelief. “She's giving him her keys!” she thought, eyeing Pepe, trying to catch his attention because he knew ...
-
The Science of Herself
By Karen Joy FowlerHere she debuts a provocative new story written especially for this series.
-
The Lonely Planet Travel Anthology
By Karen Joy Fowler, Alexander McCall Smith, Francine ProseWe make our way slowly into the assembly hall, where 26 identical pillars cut from one rock line the sides. A fat stupa cut of the same rock stands at the innermost part of the hall; 20 feet high, it's shaped like an overturned bowl ...
-
Ancient Israelite Literature in Its Cultural Context: A Survey of Parallels Between Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Texts
By John H. Walton... 126 , 134 174 , 203 , 211 , 212 , 216 Theodorides , Aristide , 93 Wiseman , D. J. , 50 , 51 , 67 , Thomas , D. Winton , 170 , 84 , 85 , 89 , 93 , 170 , 200 171 , 200 Thompson , R. Campbell , Wolf , Herbert , 126 22 , 47 , 113 Wright ...
-
Selected Letters: Nicholas Hagger's Letters on His 55 Literary and Universalist Works
By Nicholas HaggerEveryone seems to have got something out of the speeches, the Metaphysical Revolution was declared, and Shelley's wind is now scattering “sparks, my words among mankind” (the passage Kathleen Raine quoted). We now hope it translates ...