(1923 – 1985)
Biographical Sketch
Italo Calvino (Santiago de las Vegas, Cuba, October 15, 1923 – Siena, Italy, September 19, 1985) was an Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels. His best known works include the Our Ancestors trilogy (1952 – 1959), the Cosmicomics collection of short stories (1965), and the novels Invisible Cities (1972) and If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler (1979).
Lionised in Britain and the United States, he was the most-translated contemporary Italian writer at the time of his death, and a noted contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Read more about Italo Calvino on Wikipedia.
Major Awards and Honors
Premio Viareggio (Italy)
- 1957: Narrativa – “Il barone rampante”
(tied with Arturo Tofanelli’s “L’uomo d’oro” and Natalia Ginzbur’s “Valentino”)
Premio Letterario Internazionale Mondello (Italy)
- 1984: Best Work by an Italian Author – “Palomar”
Légion d’Honneur (France)
- 1981: Chevalier de la Légion
American Academy
- 1975: Honorary Member
Austrian State Prize for European Literature
- 1976
Bibliography
Novels, Novellas, Tales
- Il Sentiero dei Nidi di Ragno (1947)
(The Path to the Spiders’ Nests) - Il Midollo del Leone (1955)
- I Nostri Antenati (1960)
(Our Ancestors)- Il Visconte Dimezzato (1952)
(The Cloven Viscount) - Il Barone Rampante (1957)
(The Baron in the Trees) - Il Cavaliere Inesistente (1959)
(The Nonexistent Knight)
- Il Visconte Dimezzato (1952)
- Marcovaldo ovvero Le Stagioni in Città (1963)
(Marcovaldo, or the Seasons in the City) - Le Cosmicomiche (1964)
(Cosmicomics) - Ti con Zero (1967)
(T Zero) - Le Città Invisibili (1972)
(Invisible Cities) - Il Castello dei Destini Incrociati (1973)
(The Castle of Crossed Destinies) - Se una Notte d’Inverno un Viaggiatore (1979)
(If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler) - Palomar (1983)
(Mr. Palomar)
Short Story and Fable Collections
- Ultimo Viene Il Corvo (1949)
(One Afternoon and Other Stories) - Le Fiabe Italiane (1956)
(Italian Folktales) - Racconti (1958)
- Il Mare dell’Oggettività (1959)
– Contribution to Il Menabò. - La Sfida del Labirinto (1962)
– Contribution to Il Menabò. - La Giornata di uno Scrutatore (1963)
(Time and the Hunter) - Nuvola di Smog (1968)
(Smog) - Collezione di Sabbia (1984)
- Sotto il Sole Giaguaro (1986)
(Under the Jaguar Sun)
Il Nome, il Naso
Sotto il Sole Giaguaro
Un Re in Ascolto - Difficult Loves (1993)
- Adam, One Afternoon and Other Stories (1993)
- Numbers in the Dark and Other Stories (1996)
Essays, Articles, Lectures, Memoirs
- Una Pietra Sopra (1980)
(The Uses of Literature) - Lezioni Americane (1985)
- The Literature Machine: Essays (1987)
- Six Memos for the Next Millennium (1988)
- La Strada De San Giovanni (1992)
(The Road to San Giovanni) - The Hermit in Paris (1995)
- Why Read the Classics? (2000)
A Favorite Quote
The Uses of Literature
“A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.”
Find more quotes by Italo Calvino on Wikiquote and Goodreads.