Italo Calvino - Italian Author
Created | Updated Feb 1, 2003
Italo Calvino - Italian Author
Italo Calvino is possibly the best-known Italian writer in the English speaking world.<FOOTNOTE>With the possible exception of Umberto Eco</FOOTNOTE> His books__ light, sometimes playful and always intelligent__ still sell and this is due to the complete originality they display and the strength of Calvino's imagination (or his gimmicks depending on your point of view). Books in which "you" are the main character and filled with the beginnings of imaginary novels, descriptions of fantastic cities, stories inspired by the intersections of tarot cards, fairy tales and scientific fables. Calvino's imagination and lightness of touch mean that he will be read for many years to come.
A Little Biography
Early years and war years
Italo Calvino was born in Cuba in 1923 near Havana. When he was two, the Calvinos returned to their home country of Italy. The son of a Italian teacher of agriculture and floriculture and surrounded by a family of scientific thinkers, Calvino initially felt out of place due to his literary leanings. His early childhood was one spent revelling in Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson as well as American comics and films.
He overcame his dislike of the sciences and initially studied at the Faculty of Agriculture of the Universities of Turin and Florence. In 1943, refusing to be conscripted into military service by the Fascist government he was forced into hiding. In 1944 he joined Garibaldi partisans in the mountains. Because of his actions his parents were arrested. After the Liberation of Italy, Calvino became a committed Communist writing many articles for Marxist journals and newspapers.
A Creative Struggle
In 1945, he returned to the University of Turin and graduated with a degree in English Literature, his thesis on the works of Joseph Conrad. At this time he also started publishing articles and stories. His first novel, The Path to the Spiders Nests, was published in 1947 and won the prestigious award, the Premio Riccione. Taking jobs in journalism and the publishing industry to support himself, Calvino continued to write and publish stories but found it difficult to produce a second novel. The style of all Calvino's fiction up to this point were the neorealist <FOOTNOTE> Neorealism was a movement in Italian art stretching from the early 1940's to the mid 1950's. It's aims were to display a new realism in style and content in cinema. literature, etc based on the actualities of anti-fascist and and post war Italy. All practitioners showed strong Marxist leanings and the political and social "message" was of the utmost importance. </FOOTNOTE> vein popular at the time and displayed his strong socialist politics.
However, he had become disillusioned with this style of writing as he explained in his introduction to Our Ancestors:
"... I had made efforts to write the realistic-novel-reflecting-the-problems-of-Italian-society, and had not managed to do so. (At the time I was a "politically committed writer.") And then, in 1951, when I was twenty-eight and not at all sure that I was going to carry on writing, I began doing what came most naturally to me..."
Our Ancestors, Introduction, trans. Isabel Quigly
What came most naturally to him was writing the books he himself would like to read, not the books that were expected of him. The result was a book written in little over a month, The Cloven Viscount. Here, Calvino took as his models Robert Louis Stevenson and Voltaire. He went on to write two more books in this style in the 1950's: The Baron in the Trees and The Non-Existent Knight.
While still attempting to write novels of a more political and realist nature, he started collating and rewriting Italian folktales, an anthology of which was published in 1956 and still available today.
Then came a period in which his outlook on politics and literature changed. In 1957 he left the Communist Party. it was for him "a time for serious rethinking of positions." This was also the year he completed the Baron in the Trees and A Plunge into Real Estate. The Non-Existent Knight followed the year after. These were to be the last conventional novels he would write.
Experiments
For four years, he published no major work. He was worried that he had nothing to say and that the contemporary novel was a dead, for him at least. In 1963 he published one last "novel" (not more than 100 pages long) The Watcher and developed the style that would serve him in all his remaining books: groups of shorter texts within a larger framework.
The first of these, Marcovaldo, was an anthology of stories centred on an Italian peasant trying to make sense of the industrialised world around him. The splitting of the stories into consecutive seasons on the year was the first construct of this type he had used.
In 1964 he married Esther Singer, a translator for Unesco, with whom he had a daughter Giovanna.
In the early 70's he joined the OuLiPo <FOOTNOTE>, a group ideally suited to his thought processes. Along with Georges Perec, Calvino is probably the best known and biggest selling Oulipian writer. For an account of the OuLiPo and it's founder Raymond Queneau see XXXXXX </FOOTNOTE>
Died 19/9/1985.
Selected Titles
Our Ancestors
A Book of Romances
The three historical romances <FOOTNOTE> Romance in the old sense, not stories of a romantic nature</FOOTNOTE> written in the 1950's. Published separately, they were gathered together a few years later under the title of Our Ancestors.
The Cloven Viscount tells the story of a man literally split in two halves by a cannonball. One half is evil, the other good.
Baron in the Trees is about twelve year old Cosimo, the son of Baron di Rondo, who in a fit of petulance decides to climb into a tree and never set foot on the ground again.
The Non-Existent Knight is set in the days of Charlemagne's Paladins and the knight of the title, Agiluf, is an empty suit of armour.
Cosmicomics / Time and the Hunter
Two Books of Experiments
In which Calvino perplexed his readers and the critics by seemingly inventing a new genre. Not science fiction, but instead humorous scientific fables. Starting with a scientific theory or fact (e.g. the Big Bang or the extinction of the dinosaurs) he let his imagination run free. The character of Qfwfq tells his stories to the author. Ageless and bodiless he has been everywhere, from before the beginning of time to the emergence of fish in the ocean to taking the train to work (he lives in New Jersey). Playing marbles with hydrogen atoms, telling how he used to pole vault onto the surface of the Moon because it was much closer to the Earth in those days. Qfwfq has done it all.
Time and the Hunter contains more of these Cosmicomics and some stories of a more mathematical nature, exploring Calvino's fascination with iterative processes and multiple possibilities. This interest was to lead him to the OuLiPo in the 1970's.
The Castle of Crossed Destinies
A Book of Tarot
A group of travellers find themselves taking refuge in a castle overnight (and later a tavern). They find themselves unable to speak, so instead they use the only means available to tell their stories: a pack of Tarot cards. The criss-crossing of the lines reveal stories in stories about the travellers amongst them: Oedipus, Lady Macbeth, Hamlet and Faust.
Each page has the cards printed on them so that the reader can follow the descriptions of the cards and the stories they tell.
Invisible Cities
A Book of Cities
This is Calvino's shortest and perhaps most beautiful book. In 9 parts containing 55 very short chapters, Marco Polo describes some of the cities he has visited to Kublai Kahn.
If on a Winters Night a Traveller
A Book of Beginnings
Following a period on intense writer's block. Calvino returned with this, his biggest selling book and probably his most audacious experiment. The book begins: "You are about to start reading Italo Calvino's new novel If on a Winters Night a Traveller …." In the book"You" are the main character and everytime you think you have found a copy of Calvino's book you find another book which you never finish, then another book, then… etc. <FOOTNOTE>as the story continues it becomes apparent that "you" are not the main character. Instead, "you" is the main the character. Indeed "you" is male. Calvino, of course, comments on this confusion during the novel. </FOOTNOTE> This is Calvino's biggest selling book. Funny and intelligent at every turn.
Sources:
As well as books by Italo Calvino,
oulipo laboratory
oulipo compendium
Italo Calvino by Martin McLaughlin
Italo Calvino is possibly the best-known Italian writer in the English speaking world.<FOOTNOTE>With the possible exception of Umberto Eco</FOOTNOTE> His books__ light, sometimes playful and always intelligent__ still sell and this is due to the complete originality they display and the strength of Calvino's imagination (or his gimmicks depending on your point of view). Books in which "you" are the main character and filled with the beginnings of imaginary novels, descriptions of fantastic cities, stories inspired by the intersections of tarot cards, fairy tales and scientific fables. Calvino's imagination and lightness of touch mean that he will be read for many years to come.
A Little Biography
Early years and war years
Italo Calvino was born in Cuba in 1923 near Havana. When he was two, the Calvinos returned to their home country of Italy. The son of a Italian teacher of agriculture and floriculture and surrounded by a family of scientific thinkers, Calvino initially felt out of place due to his literary leanings. His early childhood was one spent revelling in Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson as well as American comics and films.
He overcame his dislike of the sciences and initially studied at the Faculty of Agriculture of the Universities of Turin and Florence. In 1943, refusing to be conscripted into military service by the Fascist government he was forced into hiding. In 1944 he joined Garibaldi partisans in the mountains. Because of his actions his parents were arrested. After the Liberation of Italy, Calvino became a committed Communist writing many articles for Marxist journals and newspapers.
A Creative Struggle
In 1945, he returned to the University of Turin and graduated with a degree in English Literature, his thesis on the works of Joseph Conrad. At this time he also started publishing articles and stories. His first novel, The Path to the Spiders Nests, was published in 1947 and won the prestigious award, the Premio Riccione. Taking jobs in journalism and the publishing industry to support himself, Calvino continued to write and publish stories but found it difficult to produce a second novel. The style of all Calvino's fiction up to this point were the neorealist <FOOTNOTE> Neorealism was a movement in Italian art stretching from the early 1940's to the mid 1950's. It's aims were to display a new realism in style and content in cinema. literature, etc based on the actualities of anti-fascist and and post war Italy. All practitioners showed strong Marxist leanings and the political and social "message" was of the utmost importance. </FOOTNOTE> vein popular at the time and displayed his strong socialist politics.
However, he had become disillusioned with this style of writing as he explained in his introduction to Our Ancestors:
"... I had made efforts to write the realistic-novel-reflecting-the-problems-of-Italian-society, and had not managed to do so. (At the time I was a "politically committed writer.") And then, in 1951, when I was twenty-eight and not at all sure that I was going to carry on writing, I began doing what came most naturally to me..."
Our Ancestors, Introduction, trans. Isabel Quigly
What came most naturally to him was writing the books he himself would like to read, not the books that were expected of him. The result was a book written in little over a month, The Cloven Viscount. Here, Calvino took as his models Robert Louis Stevenson and Voltaire. He went on to write two more books in this style in the 1950's: The Baron in the Trees and The Non-Existent Knight.
While still attempting to write novels of a more political and realist nature, he started collating and rewriting Italian folktales, an anthology of which was published in 1956 and still available today.
Then came a period in which his outlook on politics and literature changed. In 1957 he left the Communist Party. it was for him "a time for serious rethinking of positions." This was also the year he completed the Baron in the Trees and A Plunge into Real Estate. The Non-Existent Knight followed the year after. These were to be the last conventional novels he would write.
Experiments
For four years, he published no major work. He was worried that he had nothing to say and that the contemporary novel was a dead, for him at least. In 1963 he published one last "novel" (not more than 100 pages long) The Watcher and developed the style that would serve him in all his remaining books: groups of shorter texts within a larger framework.
The first of these, Marcovaldo, was an anthology of stories centred on an Italian peasant trying to make sense of the industrialised world around him. The splitting of the stories into consecutive seasons on the year was the first construct of this type he had used.
In 1964 he married Esther Singer, a translator for Unesco, with whom he had a daughter Giovanna.
In the early 70's he joined the OuLiPo <FOOTNOTE>, a group ideally suited to his thought processes. Along with Georges Perec, Calvino is probably the best known and biggest selling Oulipian writer. For an account of the OuLiPo and it's founder Raymond Queneau see XXXXXX </FOOTNOTE>
Died 19/9/1985.
Selected Titles
Our Ancestors
A Book of Romances
The three historical romances <FOOTNOTE> Romance in the old sense, not stories of a romantic nature</FOOTNOTE> written in the 1950's. Published separately, they were gathered together a few years later under the title of Our Ancestors.
The Cloven Viscount tells the story of a man literally split in two halves by a cannonball. One half is evil, the other good.
Baron in the Trees is about twelve year old Cosimo, the son of Baron di Rondo, who in a fit of petulance decides to climb into a tree and never set foot on the ground again.
The Non-Existent Knight is set in the days of Charlemagne's Paladins and the knight of the title, Agiluf, is an empty suit of armour.
Cosmicomics / Time and the Hunter
Two Books of Experiments
In which Calvino perplexed his readers and the critics by seemingly inventing a new genre. Not science fiction, but instead humorous scientific fables. Starting with a scientific theory or fact (e.g. the Big Bang or the extinction of the dinosaurs) he let his imagination run free. The character of Qfwfq tells his stories to the author. Ageless and bodiless he has been everywhere, from before the beginning of time to the emergence of fish in the ocean to taking the train to work (he lives in New Jersey). Playing marbles with hydrogen atoms, telling how he used to pole vault onto the surface of the Moon because it was much closer to the Earth in those days. Qfwfq has done it all.
Time and the Hunter contains more of these Cosmicomics and some stories of a more mathematical nature, exploring Calvino's fascination with iterative processes and multiple possibilities. This interest was to lead him to the OuLiPo in the 1970's.
The Castle of Crossed Destinies
A Book of Tarot
A group of travellers find themselves taking refuge in a castle overnight (and later a tavern). They find themselves unable to speak, so instead they use the only means available to tell their stories: a pack of Tarot cards. The criss-crossing of the lines reveal stories in stories about the travellers amongst them: Oedipus, Lady Macbeth, Hamlet and Faust.
Each page has the cards printed on them so that the reader can follow the descriptions of the cards and the stories they tell.
Invisible Cities
A Book of Cities
This is Calvino's shortest and perhaps most beautiful book. In 9 parts containing 55 very short chapters, Marco Polo describes some of the cities he has visited to Kublai Kahn.
If on a Winters Night a Traveller
A Book of Beginnings
Following a period on intense writer's block. Calvino returned with this, his biggest selling book and probably his most audacious experiment. The book begins: "You are about to start reading Italo Calvino's new novel If on a Winters Night a Traveller …." In the book"You" are the main character and everytime you think you have found a copy of Calvino's book you find another book which you never finish, then another book, then… etc. <FOOTNOTE>as the story continues it becomes apparent that "you" are not the main character. Instead, "you" is the main the character. Indeed "you" is male. Calvino, of course, comments on this confusion during the novel. </FOOTNOTE> This is Calvino's biggest selling book. Funny and intelligent at every turn.
Sources:
As well as books by Italo Calvino,
oulipo laboratory
oulipo compendium
Italo Calvino by Martin McLaughlin
