Italo Calvino, one of Italy's finest postwar writers, has delighted readers around the world with his deceptively simple, fable-like stories. Calvino was born in Cuba in 1923 and raised in San Remo, Italy; he fought for the Italian Resistance from 1943-45. He died in Siena in 1985, of a brain hemorrhage.Martin L. McLaughlin is Professor of Italian and Fiat-Serena Professor of Italian Studies at the University of Oxford where he is a Fellow of Magdalen College. He is the English translator of Umberto Eco and Italo Calvino among many others.

Calvino was ahead of his time in so many ways that only now is his work widely perceived not as marginal because it is fantasy, but as a landmark in fiction, the work of a master . . . It's a joy to have all the Cosmicomics within one cover, and a handsome cover it is ... Martin McLaughlin's introduction couldn't be better as a guide to these dazzlingly idiosyncratic tales

Italo Calvino, one of Italy's finest postwar writers, has delighted readers around the world with his deceptively simple, fable-like stories. Calvino was born in Cuba in 1923 and raised in San Remo, Italy; he fought for the Italian Resistance from 1943-45. He died in Siena in 1985, of a brain hemorrhage.Martin L. McLaughlin is Professor of Italian and Fiat-Serena Professor of Italian Studies at the University of Oxford where he is a Fellow of Magdalen College. He is the English translator of Umberto Eco and Italo Calvino among many others.

Calvino was ahead of his time in so many ways that only now is his work widely perceived not as marginal because it is fantasy, but as a landmark in fiction, the work of a master . . . It's a joy to have all the Cosmicomics within one cover, and a handsome cover it is ... Martin McLaughlin's introduction couldn't be better as a guide to these dazzlingly idiosyncratic tales

Italo Calvino, one of Italy's finest postwar writers, has delighted readers around the world with his deceptively simple, fable-like stories. Calvino was born in Cuba in 1923 and raised in San Remo, Italy; he fought for the Italian Resistance from 1943-45. He died in Siena in 1985, of a brain hemorrhage.Martin L. McLaughlin is Professor of Italian and Fiat-Serena Professor of Italian Studies at the University of Oxford where he is a Fellow of Magdalen College. He is the English translator of Umberto Eco and Italo Calvino among many others.

Calvino was ahead of his time in so many ways that only now is his work widely perceived not as marginal because it is fantasy, but as a landmark in fiction, the work of a master . . . It's a joy to have all the Cosmicomics within one cover, and a handsome cover it is ... Martin McLaughlin's introduction couldn't be better as a guide to these dazzlingly idiosyncratic tales