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Italo Calvino

Italo Calvino, on the cover of Lezioni americane: Sei proposte per il prossimo millennio
Born October 15, 1923(1923-10-15)
Santiago de Las Vegas, Cuba
Died September 19, 1985 (aged 62)
Siena, Italy
Occupation journalist, short story writer, novelist, essayist
Nationality Italian
Literary movement Postmodernism
Influences
Influenced

Italo Calvino (October 15, 1923 – September 19, 1985) (pronounced [ˈiːtalo kalˈviːno]) was an Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels. Events 533 - Byzantine General Belisarius makes his formal entry into Carthage, having conquered it from the Year 1923 ( MCMXXIII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Santiago de las Vegas is a city in Havana Province, Cuba, located south of Havana. The Republic of Cuba (ˈkjuːbə or) consists of the island of Cuba (the largest and second-most populous island of the Greater Antilles) Isla de la Events 335 - Dalmatius is raised to the rank of Caesar by his uncle Constantine I. Year 1985 ( MCMLXXXV) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link displays 1985 Gregorian calendar) Siena is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Siena. Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest Employment is a Contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. Nationality is a relationship between a Person and their State of Origin, Culture, association Affiliation and/or Loyalty This is a list of modern literary movements: that is movements after the Renaissance. Postmodernism literally means 'after the modernist movement' While " Modern " itself refers to something "related to the present" the movement of modernism Samuel Barclay Beckett (13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989 was an Irish Writer, Dramatist and poet Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (June 24 1842 &ndash 1914? was an American Editorialist Journalist, short-story writer and Satirist. Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 &ndash 8 January 1642 was a Tuscan ( Italian) Physicist, Mathematician, Astronomer, and Philosopher Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21 1899 — July 2 1961 was an American novelist short-story writer, and Journalist. This page is about the novelist For his father the politician see Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov. Cesare Pavese ( September 9, 1908 &ndash August 27, 1950) was an Italian Poet, Novelist, literary critic and Georges Perec ( 7 March 1936 &ndash 3 March 1982) was a highly-regarded French Edgar Allan Poe (January 19 1809 – October 7 1849 was an American poet, short-story Writer, editor and Literary critic, Raymond Queneau ( February 21, 1903 &ndash October 25, 1976) was a French Poet and Novelist and the co-founder Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (13 November 1850–3 December 1894 was a Scottish novelist poet and travel writer, and a representative of Neo-romanticism in François-Marie Arouet ( 21 November 1694 30 May 1778) better known by the Pen name Voltaire, was a French Aimee Bender (born June 28, 1969) is an American Novelist and short story writer known for her surreal plots and characters Amanda Filipacchi (born 1967 (pronounced Fili-'pah-kee is an American writer best known for her humorous inventive and controversial novels Ferit Orhan Pamuk (born on 7 June 1952 in Istanbul) generally known simply as Orhan Pamuk, is a Turkish Novelist and professor of Comparative Events 533 - Byzantine General Belisarius makes his formal entry into Carthage, having conquered it from the Year 1923 ( MCMXXIII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Events 335 - Dalmatius is raised to the rank of Caesar by his uncle Constantine I. Year 1985 ( MCMLXXXV) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link displays 1985 Gregorian calendar) Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest 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). Our Ancestors (Italian I Nostri Antenati) is the name of Italo Calvino 's "heraldic trilogy" that comprises The Cloven Viscount Cosmicomics is a book of short stories by Italo Calvino. Each story takes a scientific "fact" (though sometimes a falsehood by today's understanding Invisible Cities ( Le città invisibili) is a Novel by Italian writer Italo Calvino. If on a winter's night a traveler ( Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore) is a Novel published in 1979 by Italo Calvino.

Lionised in England and America, he was, at the time of his death, the most-translated contemporary Italian writer. [1]

Contents

Biography

Cuba

Italo Calvino was born in Santiago de Las Vegas, a suburb of Havana, Cuba in 1923. Santiago de las Vegas is a city in Havana Province, Cuba, located south of Havana. Havana ( IPA: aˈβana officially Ciudad de La Habana, is the Capital city, major port and leading The Republic of Cuba (ˈkjuːbə or) consists of the island of Cuba (the largest and second-most populous island of the Greater Antilles) Isla de la His father, Mario, was a tropical agronomist and botanist who also taught agriculture and floriculture. [2] Born 47 years earlier in San Remo, Italy, Mario had emigrated to Mexico in 1909 where he took up an important position with the Ministry of Agriculture. Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest The United Mexican States ( or commonly Mexico (ˈmɛksɪkoʊ () is a federal constitutional Republic in North America. In an autobiographical essay, Calvino explained that his father “had been in his youth an anarchist, a follower of Kropotkin and then a Socialist Reformist. Anarchism is a Political philosophy encompassing theories and attitudes which support the elimination of all compulsory Government, i ” [3] In 1917, Mario left for Cuba to conduct scientific experiments, after living through the Mexican Revolution.

Calvino's mother, Eva Mameli, was a botanist and university professor. A native of Sardinia and 11 years younger than her husband, she married while still a junior lecturer at Pavia University. Sardinia (sɑrˈdɪnɪə Sardegna Sardigna or Sardinnya is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea (after Sicily) The University of Pavia ( Italian: Università degli Studi di Pavia, UNIPV is a university located in Pavia, Lombardy, Italy. Born into a secular family, Eva was a pacifist educated in the “religion of civic duty and science. ” [4] Calvino described his parents as being “very different in personality from one another,” [5] suggesting perhaps deeper tensions behind a comfortable, albeit strict, middle-class upbringing devoid of conflict. As an adolescent, he found it hard relating to poverty and the working-class, and was “ill at ease” with his parents’ openness to the laborers who filed into Mario's study on Saturdays to receive their weekly paycheck. [6]

Early life and education

In 1925, less than two years after Calvino's birth, the family returned to Italy and settled definitively in San Remo on the Ligurian coast. Floriano, Calvino's brother who became a distinguished geologist, was born in 1927. A geologist is a contributor to the Science of Geology, studying the physical structure and processes of the Earth and planets of the solar system

The family divided their time between the Villa Meridiana, an experimental floriculture station which also served as their home, and Mario's ancestral land at San Giovanni Battista. On this small working farm set in the hills behind San Remo, Mario pioneered in the cultivation of then exotic fruits such as avocado and grapefruit, eventually obtaining an entry in the Dizionario biografico degli italiani for his achievements. The vast forests and luxuriant fauna omnipresent in Calvino's early fiction such as The Baron in the Trees derives from this “legacy. The Baron in the Trees (Italian ll Barone Rampante) is a novel written by Italo Calvino. ” In an interview, Calvino stated that “San Remo continues to pop out in my books, in the most diverse pieces of writing. ” [7] He and Floriano would climb the tree-rich estate and perch for hours on the branches reading their favorite adventure stories. [8] Less salubrious aspects of this “paternal legacy” are described in The Road to San Giovanni, Calvino's memoir of his father in which he exposes their inability to communicate: "Talking to each other was difficult. Both verbose by nature, possessed of an ocean of words, in each other's presence we became mute, would walk in silence side by side along the road to San Giovanni. ” [9] Due to his early interest in stories, having devoured Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book as a child, Calvino felt he was the “black sheep” of a family that held literature in less esteem than the sciences. Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936 was an English Author and poet The Jungle Book (1894 is a collection of stories written by Rudyard Kipling. Fascinated by American movies and cartoons, he was equally attracted to drawing, poetry, and theatre. On a darker note, Calvino recalled that his earliest memory was of a socialist professor brutalized by Fascist lynch-squads. Fascism is a totalitarian nationalist and corporatist ideology “I remember clearly that we were at dinner when the old professor came in with his face beaten up and bleeding, his bowtie all torn, asking for help. ” [10]

Other legacies include the parents’ masonic republicanism which occasionally developed into anarchic socialism. [11] Austere, anti-Fascist freethinkers, Eva and Mario refused giving their sons any religious education. [12] Italo attended the English nursery school, St George's College, followed by a Protestant elementary private school run by Waldensians. Protestantism refers to the forms of Christian faith and practice that originated in the 16th century Protestant Reformation. General description The earliest Waldensians believed in poverty and austerity promoting true poverty public preaching and the personal study of the scriptures His secondary schooling was completed at the state-run Liceo Gian Domenico Cassini where, at his parents’ request, he was exempted from religious instruction but forced to justify his anticonformist stance. In his mature years, Calvino described the experience as a salutary one as it made him “tolerant of others’ opinions, particularly in the field of religion, remembering how irksome it was to hear myself mocked because I did not follow the majority's beliefs. ” [13] During this time, he met a brilliant student from Rome, Eugenio Scalfari, who went on to found the weekly magazine L'Espresso and La Repubblica, Italy's major newspaper. L'espresso is a Italian weekly news magazine with national distribution la Repubblica (meaning "the Republic" is as of 2006 the largest circulation Italian daily general-interest newspaper. The two teenagers formed a lasting friendship, Calvino attributing his political awakening to their university discussions. Seated together “on a huge flat stone in the middle of a stream near our land,” [14] he and Scalfari founded the MUL (University Liberal Movement).

Eva managed to delay her son's enrolment in the Fascist armed scouts, the Balilla Moschettieri, and then arranged that he be excused, as a non-Catholic, from performing devotional acts in church. [15] But later on, as a compulsory member, he could not avoid the assemblies and parades of the Avanguardisti, [16] and was forced to participate in the Italian occupation of the French Riviera in June 1940. Opera Nazionale Balilla (ONB was an Italian Fascist Youth organization functioning as an addition to School education between 1926 and 1937 The French Riviera (Côte d'Azur Occitan: Còsta Azzura) is one of the most famous resort areas in the world extending along the Mediterranean Sea west [17]

World War II

In 1941, Calvino dutifully enrolled at the University of Turin, choosing the Agriculture Faculty where his father had previously taught courses in agronomy. The University of Turin ( Italian Università degli Studi di Torino, UNITO is a University in the city of Turin in the Piedmont region Agronomy is the science and technology of using plants for food fuel feed and fiber Concealing his literary ambitions to please his family, he passed four exams in his first year while reading anti-Fascist works by Elio Vittorini, Eugenio Montale, Cesare Pavese, Huizinga, and Pisacane, and works by Max Planck, Heisenberg, and Einstein on physics. Elio Vittorini ( July 23, 1908 - February 12, 1966) was an Italian Writer and Novelist Eugenio Montale ( October 12, 1896 — September 12, 1981) was an Italian Poet, prose writer editor and translator Cesare Pavese ( September 9, 1908 &ndash August 27, 1950) was an Italian Poet, Novelist, literary critic and Werner Heisenberg (5 December 1901 in Würzburg &ndash1 February 1976 in Munich) was a German theoretical physicist best known for enunciating the Albert Einstein ( German: ˈalbɐt ˈaɪ̯nʃtaɪ̯n; English: ˈælbɝt ˈaɪnstaɪn (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955 was a German -born theoretical [18] Disdainful of Turin students, Calvino saw himself as enclosed in a “provincial shell” [19] that offered the illusion of immunity from the Fascist nightmare: “We were ‘hard guys’ from the provinces, hunters, snooker-players, show-offs, proud of our lack of intellectual sophistication, contemptuous of any patriotic or military rhetoric, coarse in our speech, regulars in the brothels, dismissive of any romantic sentiment and desperately devoid of women. ” [20]

Calvino transferred to the University of Florence in 1943 and reluctantly passed three more exams in agriculture. The University of Florence ( Università degli Studi di Firenze, UNIFI is one of the largest and oldest universities in Italy. By the end of the year, the Germans had succeeded in occupying Liguria and setting up Mussolini's puppet Republic of Salò in northern Italy. The Italian Social Republic ( Italian: Repubblica Sociale Italiana or RSI) was a Puppet state of Nazi Germany led by the "Duce of the Now twenty years old, Calvino refused military service and went into hiding. Reading intensely in a wide array of subjects, he also reasoned politically that, of all the partisan groupings, the Communists were the best organized with “the most convincing political line. Communism is a Socioeconomic structure that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless Society based ” [21]

In spring 1944, Eva encouraged her sons to enter the Italian Resistance in the name of “natural justice and family virtues. The Italian Resistance movement was a partisan force during World War II. ” [22] Using the battlename of "Santiago", Calvino joined the Garibaldi Brigades, a clandestine Communist group and, for twenty months, endured the fighting in the Maritime Alps until 1945 and the Liberation. Communism is a Socioeconomic structure that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless Society based The Maritime Alps are a Mountain range in the south-western part of the Alps. As a result of his refusal to be a conscript, his parents were held hostage by the Nazis for an extended period at the Villa Meridiana. Nazism, which was a short name for National Socialism (Nationalsozialismus refers primarily to the Ideology and practices of the National Socialist German Calvino wrote of his mother's ordeal that "she was an example of tenacity and courage… behaving with dignity and firmness before the SS and the Fascist militia, and in her long detention as a hostage, not least when the blackshirts three times pretended to shoot my father in front of her eyes. The ( German for "Protective Squadron" abbreviated SS - or ( Runic)- was a major Nazi organization under Adolf Hitler and the For other uses and meanings see Blackshirts (disambiguation. The Blackshirts ( Italian: camicie nere, The historical events which mothers take part in acquire the greatness and invincibility of natural phenomena. ” [23]

Turin and communism

Calvino settled in Turin in 1945, after a long hesitation over living there or in Milan. Milan (Milano Milan (listen) is one of the largest cities in Italy, located in the plains of Lombardy. [24] He often humorously belittled this choice, describing Turin as a “city that is serious but sad. " Returning to university, he abandoned Agriculture for the Arts Faculty. A year later, he was initiated into the literary world by Elio Vittorini who published his short story Andato al commando (1945; Gone to Headquarters) in Il Politecnico, a Turin-based weekly magazine associated with the university. Elio Vittorini ( July 23, 1908 - February 12, 1966) was an Italian Writer and Novelist [25] The horror of the war had not only provided the raw material for his literary ambitions but deepened his commitment to the Communist cause. Viewing civilian life as a continuation of the partisan struggle, he confirmed his membership of the Italian Communist Party. The Italian Communist Party (Italian Partito Comunista Italiano, or PCI emerged as the Communist Party of Italy ( Partito Comunista d'Italia) On reading Lenin's State and Revolution, he plunged into post-war political life, associating himself chiefly with the worker's movement in Turin. State and Revolution is a book written by Vladimir Lenin in August and September of 1917 [26]

In 1947, he graduated with a Master's thesis on Joseph Conrad, wrote short stories in his spare time, and landed a job in the publicity department at the Einaudi publishing house run by Giulio Einaudi. A dissertation (also called thesis or disquisition) is a document that presents the author's Research and findings and is submitted in support of candidature Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924 was a Polish-born English novelist Giulio Einaudi ( January 2 1912 - April 5 1999) was one of the most important publishers in Italian history Although brief, his stint put him in regular contact with Cesare Pavese, Natalia Ginzburg, Norberto Bobbio, and many other left-wing intellectuals and writers. Cesare Pavese ( September 9, 1908 &ndash August 27, 1950) was an Italian Poet, Novelist, literary critic and Natalia Ginzburg née Levi ( July 14, 1916, Palermo &mdash October 7, 1991, Rome) was an Italian author Norberto Bobbio ( Turin October 18, 1909 &ndash Turin January 9, 2004) was an Italian philosopher of law and He then left Einaudi to work as a journalist for the official Communist daily, L'Unità, and the newborn Communist political magazine, Rinascita. l'Unità is an Italian Left-wing Newspaper, originally founded as official newspaper of the Italian Communist Party and today strictly During this period, Pavese and poet Alfonso Gatto were Calvino's closest friends and mentors. [27]

His first novel, Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno (The Path to the Nest of Spiders) written with valuable editorial advice from Pavese, won the Premio Riccione on publication in 1947. The Path to the Spiders' Nests (originally published in 1947 in Italian as Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno) was the first novel of Italian 20th [28] With sales topping 5000 copies, a surprise success in postwar Italy, the novel inaugurated Calvino's neorealist period. In a clairvoyant essay, Pavese praised the young writer as a “squirrel of the pen” who “climbed into the trees, more for fun than fear, to observe partisan life as a fable of the forest. ” [29] In 1948, he interviewed one of his literary idols, Ernest Hemingway, traveling with Natalia Ginzberg to his home in Stresa. Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21 1899 — July 2 1961 was an American novelist short-story writer, and Journalist. Natalia Ginzburg née Levi ( July 14, 1916, Palermo &mdash October 7, 1991, Rome) was an Italian author Stresa is a small Town of about 5000 inhabitants on the shores of the Lago (Lake Maggiore and situated on the road and rail routes to the Simplon pass

Ultimo viene il corvo (The Crow Comes Last), a collection of stories based on his wartime experiences, was published to acclaim in 1949. The Crow Comes Last (original Italian title Ultimo viene il corvo) is a short story collection by Italo Calvino published in 1949 Despite the triumph, Calvino grew increasingly worried by his inability to compose a worthy second novel. He returned to Einaudi in 1950, responsible this time for the literary volumes. He eventually became a consulting editor, a position that allowed him to hone his writing talent, discover new writers, and develop into “a reader of texts. ” [30] In late 1951, presumably to advance in the Communist party, he spent two months in the Soviet Union as correspondent for l'Unità. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 While in Moscow, he learned of his father's death on October 25. Events 1147 - The Portuguese, under Afonso I, and Crusaders from England and Flanders conquer Lisbon after a The articles and correspondence he produced from this visit were published in 1952, winning the Saint-Vincent Prize for journalism.

Over a seven-year period, Calvino wrote three realist novels, The White Schooner (1947-49), Youth in Turin (1950-51), and The Queen's Necklace (1952-54), but all were deemed defective. [31] During the eighteen months it took to complete I giovanni del Po (Youth in Turin), he made an important self-discovery: “I began doing what came most naturally to me - that is, following the memory of the things I had loved best since boyhood. Instead of making myself write the book I ought to write, the novel that was expected of me, I conjured up the book I myself would have liked to read, the sort by an unknown writer, from another age and another country, discovered in an attic. ” [32] The result was Il visconte dimezzato (1952; The Cloven Viscount) composed in 30 days between July and September 1951. The Cloven Viscount (Italian Il visconte dimezzato) is a Fantasy novel written by Italo Calvino. The protagonist, a seventeenth century viscount sundered in two by a cannonball, incarnated Calvino's growing political doubts and the divisive turbulence of the Cold War. Cold War is the state of conflict tension and competition that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR and their respective allies from the [33] Skillfully interweaving elements of the fable and the fantasy genres, the allegorical novel launched him as a modern “fabulist”. A fable is a succinct story in prose or verse that features Animals Plants inanimate objects, or forces of nature which are Fantasy is a Genre that uses magic and other Supernatural forms as a primary element of plot, theme, and/or setting An allegory (from αλλος allos "other" and el αγορευειν agoreuein "to speak in public" is a figurative mode of representation A fable is a succinct story in prose or verse that features Animals Plants inanimate objects, or forces of nature which are [34] In 1954, Giulio Einaudi commissioned his Fiabe Italiane (1956; Italian Folktales) on the basis of the question, “Is there an Italian equivalent of the Brothers Grimm?” [35] For two years, Calvino collated tales found in 19th century collections across Italy then translated 200 of the finest from various dialects into Italian. Italian Folktales ( Fiabe Italiane) is a collection of 200 Italian Folktales published in 1956 by Italo Calvino. The Brothers Grimm ( German: Die Gebrüder Grimm) Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Key works he read at this time were Vladimir Propp's Morphology of the Folktale and Historical Roots of Russian Fairy Tales, stimulating his own ideas on the origin, shape and function of the story. Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp (Владимир Яковлевич Пропп &mdash 22 August 1970) was a Russian formalist scholar who [36]

In 1952 Calvino wrote with Giorgio Bassani for Botteghe Oscure, a magazine named after the popular name of the party's head-offices. Giorgio Bassani ( March 4, 1916 - April 13, 2000) was an Italian novelist poet essayist editor and international intellectual He also worked for Il Contemporaneo, a Marxist weekly. Marxism is the political philosophy and practice derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

From 1955 to 1958 Calvino had an affair with the actress Elsa de' Giorgi, an older and married woman. Calvino wrote hundreds of love letters to her. Excerpts were published by Corriere della Sera in 2004, causing some controversy. Corriere della Sera ("Evening Courier" is an Italian daily Newspaper (first in sales) published in Milan. [37]

After communism

In 1957, disillusioned by the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary, Calvino left the Italian Communist party. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 ( Hungarian: 1956-os forradalom) was a spontaneous nationwide Revolt against the Stalinist government of His letter of resignation was published in L'Unità and soon became famous. l'Unità is an Italian Left-wing Newspaper, originally founded as official newspaper of the Italian Communist Party and today strictly He found new outlets for his periodic writings in the magazines Passato e Presente and Italia Domani. Together with Vittorini he became a co-editor of Il Menabò di letteratura, a position which Calvino held for many years.

Despite severe restrictions in the US against foreigners holding communist views, Calvino was allowed to visit the United States, where he stayed six months from 1959 to 1960 (four of which he spent in New York), after an invitation by the Ford Foundation. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the New York ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous The Ford Foundation is a Private foundation incorporated in Michigan and based in New York City created to fund programs that were chartered in 1936 by Calvino was particularly impressed by the "New World": "Naturally I visited the South and also California, but I always felt a New Yorker. My city is New York. " The letters he wrote to Einaudi describing this visit to the United States, were first published as "American Diary 1959-1960" in the book Hermit in Paris in 2003.

In 1962 Calvino met the Argentinian translator Esther Judith Singer (Chichita) and married her in 1964 in Havana, during a trip in which he visited his birthplace and met Ernesto Che Guevara. Havana ( IPA: aˈβana officially Ciudad de La Habana, is the Capital city, major port and leading Ernesto "Che" Guevara (June 14 Following the Cuban revolution,Guevara reviewed This encounter later led him to contribute an article on 15 October 1967, a few days after the death of Guevara, describing the lasting impression Guevara made on him. Events 533 - Byzantine General Belisarius makes his formal entry into Carthage, having conquered it from the Year 1967 ( MCMLXVII) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar of the 1967 Gregorian calendar. Back in Italy, and once again working for Einaudi, Calvino started publishing some of his cosmicomics in Il Caffè, a literary magazine.

Later life and work

Vittorini's death in 1966 influenced Calvino greatly. He went through what he called an "intellectual depression", which the writer himself described as an important passage in his life: ". . . I ceased to be young. Perhaps it's a metabolic process, something that comes with age, I'd been young for a long time, perhaps too long, suddenly I felt that I had to begin my old age, yes, old age, perhaps with the hope of prolonging it by beginning it early".

He then started to frequent Paris, where he was nicknamed L'ironique amusé. Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city Here he soon joined some important circles like the Oulipo (Ouvroir de littérature potentielle) and met Roland Barthes and Claude Lévi-Strauss, in the fermenting atmosphere that was going to evolve into 1968's cultural revolution (the French May). Oulipo (pronounced oo-lee-PO stands for " Ou vroir de li ttérature po tentielle" which translates roughly as "workshop of potential literature" Roland Barthes ( November 12, 1915 &ndash March 25, 1980) (ʀɔlɑ̃ baʀt was a French Literary critic, literary Claude Lévi-Strauss (klod levi stʁos born 28 November 1908 is a French Anthropologist. For other events in May 1968 see 1968. During his French experience, he also became fond of Raymond Queneau's works, which would influence his later production. Raymond Queneau ( February 21, 1903 &ndash October 25, 1976) was a French Poet and Novelist and the co-founder

Calvino had more intense contacts with the academic world, with notable experiences at the Sorbonne (with Barthes) and at Urbino's university. The historic University of Paris (Université de Paris first appeared in the second half of the 13th century Urbino is a walled city in the Marche region in Italy, south-west of Pesaro, a World Heritage Site notable for a remarkable historical His interests included classical studies: Honoré de Balzac, Ludovico Ariosto, Dante, Ignacio de Loyola, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Cyrano de Bergerac, and Giacomo Leopardi. Saint Ignatius redirects here for other Saints see Ignatius. Ignatius of Loyola, also known as Íñigo Oñaz López de Loyola Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra ( in modern Spanish; September 29, 1547 &ndash April 22, 1616) was a Spanish Novelist William Shakespeare ( baptised Hector Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac (6 March 1619 &ndash 28 July 1655 was a French Dramatist and Duelist who is now best remembered for the many works Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi Conte ( June 29, 1798 &ndash June 14, 1837) was an Italian Poet, At the same time, not without surprising Italian intellectual circles, Calvino wrote novels for Playboy's Italian edition (1973). Playboy is an American Men's magazine, founded in Chicago Illinois, by Hugh Hefner and his associates which has grown into Playboy He became a regular contributor to the important Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. Corriere della Sera ("Evening Courier" is an Italian daily Newspaper (first in sales) published in Milan.

In 1975 Calvino was made Honorary Member of the American Academy, and the following year he was awarded the Austrian State Prize for European Literature. The Austrian State Prize for European Literature ( Österreichischem Staatpreis für Europäische literatur) also known as the European Literary Award ( Europäischer He visited Japan and Mexico and gave lectures in several American towns. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. The United Mexican States ( or commonly Mexico (ˈmɛksɪkoʊ () is a federal constitutional Republic in North America. In 1981 he was awarded the prestigious French Légion d'honneur.

During the summer of 1985, Calvino prepared some notes for a series of lectures to be delivered at Harvard University in the fall. However, on 6 September, he was admitted to the ancient hospital of Santa Maria della Scala in Siena, where he died during the night between the 18 and 19 September of a cerebral hemorrhage. Santa Maria della Scala is a former hospital now turned into a museum complex in Siena, Tuscany, Italy. Siena is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Siena. A cerebral hemorrhage (or intracerebral hemorrhage, ICH) is a subtype of Intracranial hemorrhage that occurs within the Brain tissue itself His lecture notes were published posthumously as Six Memos for the Next Millennium in 1988. Six Memos for the Next Millennium is a book based on a series of lectures written by Italo Calvino for the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures at Harvard

Style

His style is not easily classified; much of his writing has an air of the fantastic reminiscent of fairy tales (Our Ancestors, Cosmicomics), although sometimes his writing is more "realistic" and in the scenic mode of observation (Difficult Loves, for example). Some of his writing has been called "postmodern", reflecting on literature and the act of reading, while some has been labeled "magical realist", others fables, others simply "modern". The term Postmodern literature is used to describe certain tendencies in post- World War II literature Magic realism, or magical realism, is an artistic Genre in which magical elements or illogical scenarios appear in an otherwise realistic or even "normal" A fable is a succinct story in prose or verse that features Animals Plants inanimate objects, or forces of nature which are

Twelve years before his death, he was invited to and joined the Oulipo group of experimental writers. Oulipo (pronounced oo-lee-PO stands for " Ou vroir de li ttérature po tentielle" which translates roughly as "workshop of potential literature" He wrote: "My working method has more often than not involved the subtraction of weight. I have tried to remove weight, sometimes from people, sometimes from heavenly bodies, sometimes from cities; above all I have tried to remove weight from the structure of stories and from language. "

Authors he helped publish

Selected bibliography

Fiction

Essays and other writings

Autobiographical works

Libretti

Translations

Selected filmography

Film and television adaptations

Awards

Films on Calvino

Sources

Print

Primary sources

Secondary sources

Online

References

  1. ^ McLaughlin, Martin, Italo Calvino, Edinburgh University Press, 1998, xii.
  2. ^ Calvino, Italo, ‘Objective Biographical Notice’ in Hermit in Paris, translated by Martin McLaughlin, London: Jonathan Cape, 2003, p. 160.
  3. ^ Calvino, Italo, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', Hermit in Paris, p. 132.
  4. ^ Calvino, Italo, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', Hermit in Paris, p. 132.
  5. ^ Calvino, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', Hermit in Paris, p. 132.
  6. ^ Calvino, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', Hermit in Paris, p. 135.
  7. ^ Corti, Maria, 'Intervista: Italo Calvino' in Autografo 2 (October 1985), p. 51.
  8. ^ Weiss, Beno, Understanding Italo Calvino, Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1993, p. 2.
  9. ^ Calvino, Italo, The Road to San Giovanni, translated by Tim Parks, Vintage Books: New York, 1993.
  10. ^ Calvino, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', Hermit in Paris, p. 130.
  11. ^ McLaughlin, Martin, Italo Calvino, xii. Calvino defined his family's traditions as "a humanitarian Socialism, and before that Mazzinianism. " Cf. Calvino, 'Behind the Success' in Hermit in Paris, 223.
  12. ^ Weiss, Beno, Understanding Italo Calvino, p. 3.
  13. ^ Calvino, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', Hermit in Paris, p. 134.
  14. ^ Calvino, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', Hermit in Paris, p. 130.
  15. ^ Calvino, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', Hermit in Paris, p. 134.
  16. ^ Calvino, 'The Duce's Portraits', Hermit in Paris, p. 210.
  17. ^ Weiss, Understanding Italo Calvino, p. 3.
  18. ^ Calvino, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', Hermit in Paris, p. 140.
  19. ^ Calvino, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', Hermit in Paris, p. 138.
  20. ^ Calvino, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', Hermit in Paris, p. 138.
  21. ^ Calvino recalled this sudden, forced transformation of a dreamy adolescent into a partisan soldier as one bounded by logic since “the logic of the Resistance was the very logic of our urge towards life. ” Calvino, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', Hermit in Paris, p. 146.
  22. ^ Calvino, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', p. 142.
  23. ^ Calvino, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', Hermit in Paris, p. 142.
  24. ^ The decision was influenced by the firmly anti-Fascist stance of Turin during Mussolini's years in power. Cf. Calvino, 'Behind the Success' in Hermit in Paris, p. 225.
  25. ^ Il Politecnico was founded by Elio Vittorini, a novelist and the leading leftist intellectual of postwar Italy, who saw it as a means to restore Italy's diminished standing within the European cultural mainstream. Cf. Weiss, Understanding Italo Calvino, p. 3.
  26. ^ Calvino, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', Hermit in Paris, p. 143.
  27. ^ Calvino, 'Behind the Success' in Hermit in Paris, p. 224.
  28. ^ Critic Martin McLaughlin points out that the novel failed to win the more prestigious Premio Mondadori. McLaughlin, Italo Calvino, xiii.
  29. ^ Pavese, Cesare, review of The Path to the Spiders' Nests in l'Unità (September 26, 1947). Events 46 BC - Julius Caesar dedicates a Year 1947 ( MCMXLVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1947 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Cf. Weiss, Understanding Italo Calvino, 39.
  30. ^ Weiss, Understanding Italo Calvino, p. 4.
  31. ^ Of the three manuscripts, only Youth in Turin was published in the review Officina in 1957.
  32. ^ Calvino, ‘Introduction by the author’, Our Ancestors, London: Vintage, 1998, vii.
  33. ^ Calvino, Italo, ‘Introduction by the author’, Our Ancestors, x.
  34. ^ Calvino, ‘Objective Biographical Notice’, Hermit in Paris, 163.
  35. ^ Calvino, ‘Objective Biographical Notice’, Hermit in Paris, 164.
  36. ^ Calvino, ‘Introduction’, Italian Folktales, p. xxvii.
  37. ^ Italian novelist's love letters turn political, International Herald Tribune, 20 August 2004

External links

Excerpts and essays
Events 636 - Battle of Yarmouk: Arab forces led by Khalid ibn al-Walid take control of Syria and Palestine "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " Cosmicomics is a book of short stories by Italo Calvino. Each story takes a scientific "fact" (though sometimes a falsehood by today's understanding
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