New Releases by Italo Calvino

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.

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.

«Cuando me aparto del mundo escrito para reencontrar mi lugar en el otro, en lo que solemos llamar el mundo, hecho de tres dimensiones, cinco sentidos y poblado por miles de millones de seres como nosotros, esto equivale para mí a repetir, cada vez, el trauma del nacimiento, a dar forma de realidad inteligible a un conjunto de sensaciones confusas y a elegir una estrategia para enfrentar lo inesperado sin que me destruya.»Italo Calvino Mario Barenghi ha reunido en este libro una serie de artículos y ensayos de Italo Calvino, inéditos hasta ahora en castellano, que van desde los años cincuenta hasta 1985 y que el autor había publicado en distintos medios sin recopilarlos nunca en un volumen. Además de sus reflexiones sobre la literatura fantástica en Italia y en general, el destino de la literatura y de su propia obra, se recogen textos de extraordinario interés histórico, científico y antropológico que permiten reconstruir, casi completamente, el horizonte intelectual de Calvino e ilustrar el itinerario de sus múltiples intereses. Los artículos han sido ordenados según diferentes núcleos temáticos, no con la pretensión de sustituir al autor, sino con la intención de orientar al lector dentro de la gran experiencia intelectual de Calvino: las razones de por qué se escribe en un mundo en rápida transformación, la importancia de traducir, bien como ejercicio de estilo, bien como expresión de la experiencia literaria, la evolución de la prosa narrativa... En definitiva, un libro indispensable para conocer más a Italo Calvino.

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.

An empty suit of armor is the hero of this witty novella set in the Early Middle Ages by the acclaimed author of If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler. As a paladin in the court of Charlemagne, Agilulf is the very embodiment of valor and dedication to duty—but he is also a gleaming white suit of armor with nothing inside it. While he has stolen the heart of the female knight Bradamante, she in turn is loved by the young adventurer Rambaldo. When a challenge to Agilulf’s honor sends him on an expedition through France, England, and North Africa, Brandamante and Ramaldo follow close behind. Narrated by a nun with her own secrets to keep, this beloved novella explores the absurdities of medieval knighthood in a series of plot twists that are “executed with brilliance and brio” (Chicago Tribune).

L''Orlando furioso è un libro unico nel suo genere e può esser letto senza far riferimento a nessun altro libro precedente o seguente; è un universo a sé in cui si può viaggiare in lungo e in largo, entrare, uscire, perdercisi.

"Che cos''è oggi la città per noi? Penso d''aver scritto qualcosa come un ultimo poema d''amore alle città, nel momento in cui diventa sempre più difficile viverle come città." (Da una conferenza di Calvino tenuta a New York nel 1983) Città reali scomposte e trasformate in chiave onirica, e città diaboliche e surreali che diventano archetipi moderni di un testo narrativo altamente poetico.

La sensualidad que se desprende de la lectura de estas tres breves obras maestras, y que nos embarga en la fantasía de un perfume muy especial, en el ritual casi mitológico de un peculiar sabor y en la inquietante multiplicidad de un sonido, nos ayuda a olvidar que el proyecto de Italo Calvino era el de completar este libro con los sentidos del tacto y de la vista. Difícil será borrar de la memoria la presencia casi corpórea de los aromas que busca incesantemente ese elegante hombre maduro para su amante, los exóticos platos que despiertan el deseo en ese escritor que visita templos mexicanos o las obsesivas resonancias que amenazan a un rey demasiado poderoso. ¿Quién de nosotros no ha sido alguna vez víctima consentida de la persistente presencia de los sentidos? Surgen entonces los insinuantes fantasmas que pueblan en la sombra nuestra cotidiana rutina;

For the first time in paperback--a volume of thirty-seven diabolically inventive stories, fables, and "impossible interviews" from one of the great fantasists of the 20th century, displaying the full breadth of his vision and wit. Written between 1943 and 1984 and masterfully translated by Tim Parks, the fictions in Numbers in the Dark display all of Calvino''s dazzling gifts: whimsy and horror, exuberance of style, and a cheerful grasp of the absurdities of the human condition.

«Si en una época de mi actividad literaria me atrajeron los folk-tales, los fairy-tales, no era por fidelidad a una tradición étnica ni por nostalgia de las lecturas infantiles, sino por interés estilístico y estructural, por la economía, el ritmo, la lógica esencial con que son narrados.» Sólo un escritor tan sabio y versátil como Italo Calvino podía llevar a buen término la tarea de seleccionar los doscientos mejores cuentos de la tradición popular italiana, aquí publicados íntegramente acompañados de un extenso prólogo y anotados por el propio Calvino. A lo largo de dos años Calvino escogió, entre un cúmulo de narraciones recopiladas durante casi dos siglos, las versiones más bellas y originales y las tradujo al italiano a partir de los dialectos en que habían sido compiladas.

Gli apologhi, i racconti, i dialoghi e gli articoli pubblicati su varie testate tra il 1943 e il 1984, una raccolta di prose narrative per la prima volta riunite in un volume.

La storia di Pin, bambino sbandato, passato, come per caso, dai giochi violenti dell''infanzia alla dura realtà della guerra partigiana.

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.

One of Italy''s greatest and most popular writers offers three witty, fantastical stories, each dominated by one of three senses--taste, hearing, or smell.

This is a collection of essays by the Cuban essayist and journalist. His work often seeks to confront the role of reader, author and character and question the form of each in order to explore new literary possibilities.

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.

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.

"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 tales. What follows is an exquisite interlinking of narratives, and a fantastic, surreal, and chaotic history of all human consciousness."--Goodreads

Calvino shows that the novel, far from being a dead form, is capable of endless mutations. If on a winter''s night a traveler turns out to be not one novel but ten, each with a different plot, style, ambience, and author. Based on a analogy between the reader''s desire to finish the story and the lover''s desire to consummate his or her passion, this book is the tale of two bemused readers whose attempts to reach the end of the same book are constantly and comically frustrated.

In Kublai Khan''s garden, at sunset, the young Marco Polo diverts the aged emperor from his obsession with the impending end of his empire with tales of countless cities past, present, and future.

The author''s second collection of imaginative stories about the evolution of the universe transcends the boundaries of space and time while mixing comedy with higher mathematics.

A young orphan who joins the Italian Resistance against the occupying forces from Germany during World War II discovers some spiders nests in which he hides a gun that he steals from a German soldier.

Chosen by The New York Times as one of its best books in the year of its original publication, this treasure trove of 200 lively Italian folktales has won a cherished place among fans of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. In this collection, Calvino combines a sensibility attuned to the fantastical with a singular writerly ability to capture the visions and dreams of a culture.