The Road to San Giovanni

These autobiographical essays marvellously reconstitute different strata of his past in all the pristine, warm stir of immediacy * Sunday Times *In these personal essays, Calvino dives into his memory and childhood with great warmth – John SelfI propose a new adjective, calvinoid - as in a calvinoid construct, an impossible and beautiful structure spun out of the detritus of the quotidian … the scientific precision of his imagination and his carnivalesque delight in irony and absurdity … His legacy is an atlas full of calvinoid constructs, invisible cities, that will dazzle the lucky explorer – Clive Sinclair * Independent *

Italo Calvino, one of Italy’s finest postwar writers, has delighted readers around the world with his deceptively simple, fable-like stories. He was born in Cuba in 1923 and raised in San Remo, Italy; he fought for the Italian Resistance from 1943-45. His major works include Cosmicomics (1968), Invisible Cities (1972), and If on a winter’s night a traveler (1979). He died in Siena in 1985.

Tim Parks was born in Manchester in 1954, studied at Cambridge and Harvard, and moved to Italy in 1980, where he lectures on literary translation in Milan. His translations from the Italian include works by Alberto Moravia, Italo Calvino, Roberto Calasso and Antonio Tabucchi. His most recent novels are Europa and Destiny, while his non-fiction encompasses a collection of essays, Adultery and Other Diversions, and an academic work, Translating Style. His account of provincial life in Italy, Italian Neighbours, was an international bestseller.

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