Italo Calvino – författare

A masterwork by the incomparable, genre-defying, wondrous Italo Calvino. You go into a bookshop and buy If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino. You like it. But there is a printer's error in your copy. You take it back to the shop and get a replacement. But the replacement seems to be a totally different story. You try to track down the original book you were reading but end up with a different narrative again. This remarkable novel leads you through many different books including a detective adventure, a romance, a satire, an erotic story, a diary and a quest. But the real hero of them all is you, the reader.'Breathtakingly inventive' David Mitchell'A writer of dizzying ambition and variety, each of his stories is a fresh adventure into the possibilities of fiction' Guardian

Den italienske författaren Italo Calvinos (1923 – 1985) prosa kännetecknas av en bedräglig lätthet och stor berättarglädje. Nu får en ny generation läsare möjlighet att uppleva ett av 1900-talets största författarskap. Med början hösten 2016 återutges och nyöversätts Calvinos centrala verk. Samtidigt som debutromanen "Stigen där spindlarna bygger bon" (1947) återutges också de tre sagolika och absurda romanerna "Den tudelade visconten" (1952), "Klätterbaronen" (1957) och "Den obefintlige riddaren" (1959).

Italo Calvinos älskade roman "Klätterbaronen" är berättelsen om en ung italiensk adelsman som i revolt mot sin far beslutar sig för att leva resten av sitt liv i träden. På en klar prosa och med en hisnande upp­ nningsrikedom skildrar Calvino klätterbaronens äventyrliga liv på den italienska landsbygden.

Översättning: Karin Alin

Originalets titel: Il barone rampante

Jag har velat göra dem till en trilogi om erfarenheter av hur mänskliga varelser förverkligar sig, i Den obefintlige riddaren ett erövrande av varat, i Den tudelade visconten en strävan efter fullständighet bortom de stympningar samhället utsätter en för, i Klätterbaronen en väg till en icke-individualistisk fullständighet som kan uppnås genom troheten mot ett individuellt självbestämmande: Tre steg i riktning mot friheten…

Italo Calvino

En man anländer till ett lantligt och avsides liggande slott. Runt middagsbordet sitter en samling resenärer; de är alla stumma, traumatiserade av fasansfulla händelser som de bara kan berätta om genom en tarotkortlek. Korten - Sjuan i svärd, Kungar och Drottningar i Bägare och i Mynt, Lyckohjulet, Den Hängde, Tornet, Döden - bildar berättelser som alluderar på myter som de om Oidipus, Hamlet och Faust, och De sammanflätade ödenas slott blir till en enastående allegori över litteraturen och läsandet. Romanen är en av den postmoderna litteraturens mest centrala texter. Italo Calvino (1923-1985) föddes på Kuba, och växte upp i Italien. 1973, samma år som Il castello dei destini incrociati kom ut, fick han det prestigefyllda Premio Feltrinelli-priset. De sammanflätade ödenas slott ingår i Modernistas serie Moderna klassiker. Romanen utkommer nu för första gången i svensk översättning. Pressröster: »Sällan har 1: den relativa omöjligheten i att förstå en annan människa, 2: din ömtåliga självförståelse, med det opålitliga minnet och de nervösa sinnena som sina enda instrument, och 3: din i grunden godtyckliga tillhörighet med det samhälle du lever i - i litteraturhistorien behandlats på ett originellare och vackrare sätt.« Henrik Petersen, Helsingborgs Dagblad »Boken är lika förtrollande som Calvinos andra mästerverk.« Stefan Jonsson, Dagens Nyheter

Italo Calvino's enchanting stories about the evolution of the universe, with characters that are fashioned from mathematical formulae and cellular structures, The Complete Cosmicomics is translated by Martin McLaughlin, Tim Parks and William Weaver in Penguin Modern Classics.'Naturally, we were all there, - dld Qfwfq said, - where else could we have been? Nobody knew then that there could be space. Or time either: what use did we have for time, packed in there like sardines?' The Cosmicomics tell the story of the history of the universe, from the big bang, through millennia and across galaxies. It is witnessed through the eyes of 'cosmic know-it-all' Qfwfq, an exuberant, chameleon-like figure, who takes the shape of a dinosaur, a mollusc, a steamer captain and a moon milk gatherer, among others. This is the first complete edition in English of Italo Calvino's funny, whimsical and delightful stories, which blend scientific fact, flights of fancy, parody and wordplay to show the strangeness and the wonders of the world. Italo Calvino (1923-1985), 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 and raised in San Remo, Italy; he fought for the Italian Resistance from 1943-45. Among his other works published in Penguin Modern Classics are Italian Folktales, Hermit in Paris, Into the War, The Path to the Spiders' Nests, Numbers in the Dark, Six Memos for the Next Millennium and Why Read the Classics?If you liked The Complete Cosmicomics, you might enjoy Jorge Luis Borges' Fictions, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.'The complete and definitive collection ... a masterpiece' Gilbert Adair, Evening Standard'Dazzling ... a book of revelation' Tim Adams, Observer 'If you have never read Cosmicomics, you have before you the most joyful reading experience of your life' Salman Rushdie'A landmark in fiction, the work of a master' Ursula K Le Guin, Guardian

Why Read the Classics? is an elegant defence of the value of great literature by one of the finest authors of the last century. Beginning with an essay on the attributes that define a classic (number one - classics are those books that people always say they are 'rereading', not 'reading'), this is an absorbing collection of Italo Calvino's witty and passionate criticism.

Fifty-five fictional cities, each described in beautiful detail - each with a woman's name... In Invisible Cities Marco Polo conjures up cities of magical times for his host, the Chinese ruler Kublai Khan, but gradually it becomes clear that he is actually describing one city: Venice. As Gore Vidal wrote 'Of all tasks, describing the contents of a book is the most difficult and in the case of a marvellous invention like Invisible Cities, perfectly irrelevant.'This is a captivating meditation on culture, language, time, memory and the nature of human experience.'Invisible Cities changed the way we read and what is possible in the balance between poetry and prose... The book I would choose as pillow and plate, alone on a desert island' Jeanette Winterson'Touches inexhaustibly on the essence of the human urge to create cities, be in cities, speak of cities' Guardian'A subtle and beautiful meditation' Sunday Times

Mr Palomar is a delightful eccentric whose chief activity is looking at things. He is seeking knowledge; 'it is only after you have come to know the surface of things that you can venture to seek what is underneath'. Whether contemplating a fine cheese, a hungry gecko, a woman sunbathing topless or a flight of migrant starlings, Mr Palomar's observations render the world afresh.'Beautifully nimble, solitary feats of imagination' Seamus Heaney'Beguiling' Time

Den italienske författaren Italo Calvinos (1923 – 1985) prosa kännetecknas av en bedräglig lätthet och stor berättarglädje. Nu får en ny generation läsare möjlighet att uppleva ett av 1900-talets största författarskap. Med början i höst återutges och nyöversätts Calvinos centrala verk. Samtidigt som debutromanen "Stigen där spindlarna bygger bon" (1947) återutges också de tre sagolika och absurda romanerna "Den tudelade visconten" (1952), "Klätterbaronen" (1957) och"Den obefintlige riddaren" (1959).

"Den tudelade visconten" är en makaber berättelse om en adelsman som blir delad mitt itu av en kanonkula. Den ena, mer ondsinta halvan, återvänder till det feodala hemlandet. Kort därpå återvänder också den andra, mer dygdiga halvan. De förälskar sig i samma kvinna och blir våldsamma rivaler, något som får oanade konsekvenser.

Översättning: Karin Alin

Originalets titel: Il visconte dimezzato

"Jag har velat göra dem till en trilogi om erfarenheter av hur mänskliga varelser förverkligar sig, i 'Den obefintlige riddaren' ett erövrande av varat, i 'Den tudelade visconten' en strävan efter fullständighet bortom de stympningar samhället utsätter en för, i 'Klätterbaronen' en väg till en icke-individualistisk fullständighet som kan uppnås genom troheten mot ett individuellt självbestämmande: Tre steg i riktning mot friheten…"

Italo Calvino

'When the last fire goes out, time too will be finished'Italo Calvino was one of the most joyful and imaginative writers of the twentieth century. Here he muses on what the things we leave behind ­- whether waxworks or ancient graffiti, enigmatic maps or a crumbling Roman column - tell us about the greater truths of the world, space and time.One of twenty new books in the bestselling Penguin Great Ideas series. This new selection showcases a diverse list of thinkers who have helped shape our world today, from anarchists to stoics, feminists to prophets, satirists to Zen Buddhists.

'I can think of no finer writer to have beside me while Italy explodes, Britain burns, while the world ends' Salman RushdieFrom the age of twelve, the Baron Cosimo Piovasco di Rondo makes his home among ash, elm, magnolia, plum and almond, living up in the trees. He walks through paths made from the twisted branches of olive, makes his bed in a holly oak, bathes in a fountain constructed from poplar bark. An aerial library holds the books with which he educates himself in philosophy and mathematics. Suspended among the leaves, the Baron adventures with bandits and pirates, conducts a passionate love affair, and watches the Age of Enlightenment pass by beneath him. 'The most magically ingenious of the contemporary Italian novelists' The Times

A group of travellers chance to meet, first in a castle, then a tavern. Their powers of speech are magically taken from them and instead they have only tarot cards with which to tell their stories. What follows is an exquisite interlinking of narratives, and a fantastic, surreal and chaotic history of all human consciousness.

This collection of playful, deadly fables is populated with waifs and strays, a gluttonous thief and a mischievous gardener. The grimly comic story "The Argentine Ant" moved Gore Vidal to declare 'if this is not a masterpiece of twentieth-century prose writing, I cannot think of anything better'.

Marcovaldo is an enchanting collection of twenty stories that are both melancholy and funny, farce and fantasy. Calvino charts the struggles of an Italian peasant to reconcile country habits with urban life, combining comical disasters with a surrealistic view of city life through the eyes of an outsider. As always with Calvino, nothing is quite as it seems.'Delightful and rewarding as always' Observer'The most magically ingenious of the contemporary Italian novelists' The Times

'This brilliant collection of essays should be a feast for his admirers, as well as for those who approach his dazzling oeuvre for the first time-Calvino is not only constantly and supremely intelligent; he is constantly and supremely faithful to his narrative imagination' Guardian

Viscount Medardo is bisected by a Turkish cannonball, Baron Cosimo retires to the trees for the rest of his days, and Agiluf the Knight is an empty suit of armour.Our Ancestors brings together three surreal novellas set in distinct historical worlds across medieval and early modern Europe. In The Cloven Viscount, a nobleman returns from war as two separate beings, one cruel and one impossibly virtuous, leaving his community to suffer the consequences. In The Baron in the Trees, a young aristocrat climbs into the branches of the Italian Riviera and refuses to touch the ground again, living out his life among the leaves while history moves below him.In The Nonexistent Knight, a suit of armour fights in the army of Charlemagne, sustained only by will and duty. Our Ancestors blends satire with fable, exploring how power, war and social expectation shape the self.'The most magically ingenious of the contemporary Italian novelists' The Times

Meticulously selected and artfully recreated, the selection of stories in Italian is vast and ranges geographically from Corsica and Sicily to Venice and the Alps. Calvino is himself clearly captivated by the folkloric imagination and communicates this in what is a fascinating and rich addition to folk literature.

A collection of five autobiographical essays by one of the masters of Italian literatureIn these five elegant autobiographical meditations Italo Calvino delves into his past, remembering awkward childhood walks with his father, a lifelong obsession with the cinema and fighting in the Italian Resistance against the Fascists. He also muses on the social contracts, language and sensations associated with emptying the kitchen rubbish and the shape he would, if asked, consider the world. These reflections on the nature of memory itself are engaging, witty, and lit through with Calvino's alchemical brilliance.Translated from the Italian by Tim Parks

A couple on an epicurean journey across Mexico are excited by the idea of a particular ingredient, suggested by ancient rituals of human sacrifice. Precariously balanced on his throne, a king is able only to listen to the sounds around him - sure that any deviation from their normal progression would mean the uprising of the conspirators that surround him. And three different men search desperately for the beguiling scents of lost women, from a Count visiting Madame Odile's perfumery, to a London drummer stepping over spent, naked bodies.

Pin is a bawdy, adolescent cobbler's assistant, both arrogant and insecure who - while the Second World War rages - sings songs and tells jokes to endear himself to the grown-ups of his town - particularly jokes about his sister, who they all know as the town's 'mattress'. Among those his sister sleeps with is a German sailor, and Pin dares to steal his pistol, hiding it among the spiders' nests in an act of rebellion that entangles him in the adults' war.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. 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. In addition to his published academic works he is the English translator of Umberto Eco and Italo Calvino among many others.

Numbers in the Dark is a collection of short stories covering the length of Italo Calvino's extraordinary writing career, from when he was a teenager to shortly before his death. They include witty allegories and wise fables; a town where everything has been forbidden apart from the game of tip-cat; a pitiable tribe watching the flight paths of guided missiles from outside their mud huts; a computer programmer considering the possible sequence of a series of brutal acts; and dialogues with Henry Ford, a Neanderthal and the gloomy, overthrown Montezuma ...

Italo Calvino once said that he preferred to give false details about his biography since he felt that even the genuine data of a writer's life shed no light on the creative work. But this volume of posthumously collected personal writings is the closest we will ever come to the autobiography of this most private of writers. The pieces collected here range from the early 1950s to his last interview, completed just before his sudden death in 1985. Apart from providing a glimpse into his own formative experiences and evolution as an author, Calvino's autobiographical writings also examine the major events of twentieth-century history from a very personal viewpoint. This volume is full of ideas on literature and other writers, all conveyed with the author's distinctive lightness and intelligence.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. His major works include Cosmicomics (1968), Invisible Cities (1972), and If on a winter's night a traveler (1979). He died in Sienna in 1985.

From fabulous enchantments and supernatural horrors to subtler, more psychological terrors, the best of nineteenth-century fantastic literature is collected here by Italo Calvino. These mysterious and macabre tales include Hoffmann's nightmarish 'The Sandman', Poe's terrifying 'The Tell-Tale Heart' and Dickens's chilling ghost story 'The Signal-Man', and relatively unknown works from celebrated writers including Honoré de Balzac, Henry James, Sir Walter Scott, Guy de Maupassant and Robert Louis Stevenson, alongside lesser-known contributors. Each story comes with a fascinating introduction by Calvino.

Set in Italy in the summer of 1940, this trio of stories explores the relationships between the different generations caught up in the war as well as Calvino's own experiences as a teenager. In the title story, 'Into the War', we are given an insight into what life was really like for those too young to be conscripted into Mussolini's army, while in 'The Avanguardisti in Menton', Calvino and his friends take a revealingly anti-climactic trip to the garrisoned French town of Menton, the sole Italian conquest of the early months of the conflict. The final story, 'UNPA Nights', is a touching, comic tale of friendship in a blackout, where the narrator's imagination wanders as he roams through the seedier parts of the darkened town instead of guarding the school buildings. Into the War is Calvino at his autobiographical best, combining brilliantly recollected memory with compelling wit and perfect prose.

Italo Calvino in Collection of Sand claimed that 'the brain begins in the eye'. The essays collected here display his fascination with the visual universe, in which the things we see tell a truth about the world. With encyclopedic knowledge and engaging curiosity, Calvino writes about such diverse subjects as the imaginative pleasures of maps, bizarre exhibitions and the earliest forms of written language. Books and paintings provoke discussions of artistic motivation, while descriptions of a meticulous Japanese garden, Trajan's column crumbling to dust or a Mexican temple smothered by the jungle lead to contemplations on space, time and civilization. Surprising and profound, Collection of Sand provides a glimpse into the mind of a master of the magination.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.

The extraordinary letters of Italo Calvino, one of the great writers of the twentieth century, translated into English for the first time by Martin McLaughlin, with an introduction by Michael Wood.Italo Calvino, novelist, literary critic and editor, was also a masterful letter writer whose correspondents included Umberto Eco, Primo Levi, Gore Vidal and Pier Paolo Pasolini. This collection of his extraordinary letters, the first in English, gives an illuminating insight into his work and life. They include correspondence with fellow authors, generous encouragement to young writers, responses to critics, thoughts on literary criticism and literature in general, as well as giving glimpses of Calvino's role in the antifascist Resistance, his disenchantment with Communism and his travels to America and Cuba. Together they reveal the searching intellect, clarity and passionate commitment of a great writer at work.'This literally marvelous collection of letters shows him to have been gregarious, puckish, funny, combative, and, above all, wonderful company, and opens a new and fascinating perspective on one of the master writers of the twentieth century. Michael Wood and Martin McLaughlin have done Calvino, and us, a great and loving service.' John Banville'A charming addition to the Planet Calvino - a place cluttered with sphinxes, chimeras, knights, spaceships and viscounts both cloven and whole' GuardianItalo Calvino, one of Italy's finest postwar writers, was born in Cuba in 1923 and grew up in San Remo, Italy. Best known for his experimental masterpieces, Invisible Cities and If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, he was also a brilliant exponent of allegorical fantasy in works such as The Complete Cosmicomics. He died in Siena in 1985.

'An indispensable writer ... Calvino, possesses the power of seeing into the deepest recesses of human minds and then bringing their dreams to life' Salman RushdieThe difference between life and literature; the good intentions of holiday reading; the avante-garde; the fate of the novel; the fantastical; the art of translation: these are just some of the ideas in The Written World and the Unwritten World. A collection of essays, articles, interviews, correspondence, notes and other occasional pieces on writing, reading and interpreting books, this work gives us new insight into Italo Calvino's expansive, curious and generous mind.Translated by Ann Goldstein