Italo Calvino (1923–1985)
Author of If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
About the Author
Italo Calvino 1923-1984 Novelist and short story writer Italo Calvino was born in Cuba on October 15, 1923, and grew up in Italy, graduating from the University of Turin in 1947. He is remembered for his distinctive style of fables. Much of his first work was political, including Il Sentiero dei show more Nidi di Ragno (The Path of the Nest Spiders, 1947), considered one of the main novels of neorealism. In the 1950s, Calvino began to explore fantasy and myth as extensions of realism. Il Visconte Dimezzato (The Cloven Knight, 1952), concerns a knight split in two in combat who continues to live on as two separates, one good and one bad, deprived of the link which made them a moral whole. In Il Barone Rampante (Baron in the Trees, 1957), a boy takes to the trees to avoid eating snail soup and lives an entire, fulfilled life without ever coming back down. Calvino was awarded an honorary degree from Mount Holyoke College in 1984 and died in 1985, following a cerebral hemorrhage. At the time of his death, he was the most translated contemporary Italian writer and a contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Italo Calvino chez lui à Rome en décembre 1984, Italie
Series
Works by Italo Calvino
Orlando furioso di Ludovico Ariosto raccontato da Italo Calvino : con una scelta del poema (1995) 290 copies, 8 reviews
Oulipo Laboratory: Texts from the Bibliotheque Oulipienne (Anti-Classics of Dada.) (1995) 96 copies, 1 review
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler / Invisible Cities / The Baron in the Trees (1957) 86 copies, 1 review
A Sign In Space 6 copies
Vittorini 5 copies
The Spiral 4 copies
Fábulas e Contos - Volume I 4 copies
All At One Point 3 copies
Sizilianische Märchen aus der Sammlung von Italo Calvino / Fiabe siciliane dalla raccolta di Italo Calvino [italienisch-deutsch] (1997) 3 copies
Prefazioni a Shakespeare 3 copies
Romanzi e racconti 3 copies
Fábulas e Contos - Volume III 2 copies
The Light-years 2 copies
Without Colors 2 copies
The Dinosaurs 2 copies
The Form Of Space 2 copies
How Much Shall We Bet? 2 copies
The Aquatic Uncle 2 copies
Games Without End 2 copies
Sen "Alo" Demeden Önce 2 copies
Fiabe italiane, vol. 1 2 copies
I Meridiani - Romanzi e Racconti 2 copies
PËRSE TË LEXOHEN KLASIKËT 2 copies
A King Listens [short story] 2 copies
La giornata d'uno scultore 2 copies
Fábulas e Contos - Volume II 2 copies
At Daybreak 2 copies
EL BARÓN RAMPANTE 2 copies
Six Memos for the Next Millennium (Charles Eliot Norton Lectures) by I Calvino (1988-07-01) 2 copies
By passing the water - Calvino literature and social criticism Collection (2000) ISBN: 4022574666 [Japanese Import] (2000) 2 copies
Fiabe italiane, vol. 2 2 copies
Bando del premio Italo Calvino 2 copies
Il teatro dei ventagli 1 copy
A VIDA DIFÍCIL 1 copy
A MEMÓRIA DO MUNDO 1 copy
COSMICÓMICAS 1 copy
Nasi przodkowie 1 copy
um general na biblioteca 1 copy
Fiabe italiane. Volume terzo 1 copy
MBI PËRRALLËN 1 copy
魔法の庭・空を見上げる部族 他十四篇 1 copy
De osynliga st©Þderna 1 copy
O barão trepador 1 copy
Erzählungen 3. 1 copy
Adam, Suatu Senja 1 copy
TË PARËT TANË 1 copy
Italia — Contributor — 1 copy
Vore forfdre 1 copy
LAS DOS MITADES DEL VIZCONDE 1 copy
POR QUÉ LEER LOS CLÁSICOS 1 copy
Racconti fantastici dell' Ottocento, a cura di Italo Calvino, vol. I, II. Il fantastico visionario - il fantastico quotidiano. (1989) 1 copy
Modern Italian short stories 1 copy
EL CABALLERO INEXISTENTE 1 copy
EL VIZCONDE DEMEDIADO 1 copy
I nostri antenati - Il cavaliere inesistente / Il visconte dimezzato / Il barone rampante 1 copy, 1 review
Ik barone rampante 1 copy
Sob o Sol Jaguar 1 copy
L'Uccel Belverde 1 copy
Markovaldo 1 copy
Il gigante orripilante 1 copy
Aizenberg: Dibujos 1 copy
Romanzi e racconti; 3 volumi — Author — 1 copy
Altri romanzi 1 copy
Il libro, i libri 1 copy
Lettere, 1924-1944 1 copy
Liguria 1 copy
Novedades Enero Julio 1991 1 copy
Il mare dell'oggettività 1 copy
Burvju Gredzens 1 copy
Le memorie di Casanova 1 copy
IL PAESE NON PUÒ ATTENDERE 1 copy
Amore e ginnastica 1 copy
Ejderha ile Kelebekler 1 copy
Quem Sou? - eBook 1 copy
Prisão Perpétua - eBook 1 copy
Anabasi Senofonte introduzione di Italo Calvino — Introduction — 1 copy
Paese infido (in I racconti) 1 copy
L'aria buona (in I racconti) 1 copy
La panchina (in I racconti) 1 copy
Luna e Gnac (in I racconti) 1 copy
Associated Works
The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction (1976) — Contributor — 1,214 copies, 3 reviews
Spells of Enchantment: The Wondrous Fairy Tales of Western Culture (1991) — Contributor — 604 copies, 5 reviews
Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink (2007) — Contributor — 593 copies, 10 reviews
In the Stacks: Short Stories about Libraries and Librarians (2002) — Contributor — 547 copies, 13 reviews
The Art of the Tale: An International Anthology of Short Stories (1986) — Contributor — 381 copies, 3 reviews
The Sophisticated Cat: A Gathering of Stories, Poems, and Miscellaneous Writings About Cats (1992) — Contributor — 112 copies, 1 review
Partisan Diary: A Woman's Life in the Italian Resistance (1956) — Note, some editions — 53 copies, 1 review
Italien erzählt : elf Erzählungen — Author — 6 copies
Literatura Socialismo y Poder. 2 copies
Halt auf freiem Felde : Eisenbahnabenteuer von Agatha Christie bis Tucholsky (1975) — Author — 2 copies
Crónicas de Italia — Contributor — 2 copies
新潮 1990年 09月号 現代SFの冒険 — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Calvino, Italo
- Legal name
- Calvino Mameli, Italo Giovanni
- Other names
- Cavilla, Tonio
- Birthdate
- 1923-10-15
- Date of death
- 1985-09-19
- Gender
- male
- Education
- University of Turin (Lic. 1947)
- Occupations
- journalist
short story writer
novelist
essayist - Organizations
- Oulipo
Italian Resistance (WWII) - Awards and honors
- Légion d'Honneur (Commandeur, 1981)
American Academy of Arts and Letters (Honorary Member, 1975)
Prix Mondello (1984)
World Fantasy Award (Life Achievement, 1982)
Austrian State Prize for European Literature (1976)
Premio Feltrinelli (1973) (show all 16)
Prix Médicis étranger (1974)
Asti Prize (1970)
Ditmar Award (1970)
International Charles Veillon Prize (1963)
Salento Prize (1960)
Bagutta Prize (1959)
Viareggio Prize (1957)
Saint-Vincent Prize (1952)
Riccione Prize (1947)
l'Unità Prize (1946) - Relationships
- Calvino, Mario (father)
Calvino, Eva Mameli (mother)
Singer, Chichita (wife) - Cause of death
- cerebral hemorrhage
- Nationality
- Italy
- Birthplace
- Santiago de Las Vegas, Cuba
- Places of residence
- San Remo, Italy
Santiago de Las Vegas, Cuba (birth)
Turin, Italy
Paris, Île-de-France, France
Siena, Italy (death) - Place of death
- Siena, Italy
- Burial location
- Cemetery of Castiglione Della Pescaia, Pescaia, Italy
- Map Location
- Italy
Members
Discussions
📚APR 2026 Cosmicomics #6 GAMES WITHOUT END in GoodThings I've Read (May 7)
📚APR 2026 Cosmicomics #9 THE DINOSAURS in GoodThings I've Read (April 28)
📚APR 2026 Cosmicomics #8 HOW MUCH SHALL WE BET? in GoodThings I've Read (April 27)
📚APR 2026 Cosmicomics #7 THE AQUATIC UNCLE in GoodThings I've Read (April 26)
📚APR 2026 Cosmicomics #2 AT DAYBREAK in GoodThings I've Read (April 21)
📚APR 2026 Cosmicomics #5 WITHOUT COLORS in GoodThings I've Read (April 16)
📚APR 2026 Cosmicomics #4 ALL AT ONE POINT in GoodThings I've Read (April 13)
📚APR 2026 Cosmicomics #3 A SIGN IN SPACE in GoodThings I've Read (April 8)
📚APR 2026 Cosmicomics #1 THE DISTANCE OF THE MOON in GoodThings I've Read (April 6)
📚APR 2026 Cosmicomics INTRODUCTION in GoodThings I've Read (March 29)
📚APR 2026 Cosmicomics FINAL THOUGHTS in GoodThings I've Read (March 29)
Oops. Another duplicate. in GoodThings I've Read (March 29)
Oops. Duplicate in GoodThings I've Read (March 29)
📚APR 2026 Cosmicomics #10 THE FORM OF SPACE in GoodThings I've Read (March 29)
📚APR 2026 Cosmicomics #11 THE LIGHT-YEARS in GoodThings I've Read (March 29)
📚APR 2026 Cosmicomics #12 THE SPIRAL in GoodThings I've Read (March 29)
LE: Invisible Cities in Folio Society Devotees (February 17)
Book about you reading the Book in Name that Book (June 2013)
Reviews
This is a dense and fascinating book and while it is complicated on many levels, there are at least three themes that stood out for me: first, the nature of power and the cycle of life, death and rebirth; the illusion of happiness; and the power of language; second, the theme of travel being the source of imagination; and third, the theme of self-discovery.
Marco Polo tells tales of places he's been to the Great Khan, who at first takes them literally. Only later does he begin to suspect show more there's more to the stories, and the reader begins to do the same. The cities are dreams, or at least imagined landscapes, and recognizing this is the key to that third-level theme, self-discovery. If the tales are all imagined, they must tell us something about Marco Polo, which must tell us something about ourselves. Once we understand this, the purpose of the book becomes clear. It's a meditation on humanity. It's all there, parables about political power, warnings about the use and abuse of language, lessons about time and the raising up of awareness and social conscience.
1 like show less
Marco Polo tells tales of places he's been to the Great Khan, who at first takes them literally. Only later does he begin to suspect show more there's more to the stories, and the reader begins to do the same. The cities are dreams, or at least imagined landscapes, and recognizing this is the key to that third-level theme, self-discovery. If the tales are all imagined, they must tell us something about Marco Polo, which must tell us something about ourselves. Once we understand this, the purpose of the book becomes clear. It's a meditation on humanity. It's all there, parables about political power, warnings about the use and abuse of language, lessons about time and the raising up of awareness and social conscience.
1 like show less
One can't get enough of it and though I keep coming back to it time and again, this time I revisited it in Urdu translation. Given the inherent poetics of Urdu, all the cities imagined by William Weaver's translation seems beautifully refurbished.
Zeenat Hisam has done another masterful translation of a modern classic. She has captured the imaginative essence of the novel by achieving the same dream-like quality of William Weaver's English translation. I read some passages more than once to show more test whether I feel suspended between the poetry and prose in Urdu, which is signature Calvino. It happened without fail. I would certainly do a detailed review, however, any future reader or translator must know that geometrical structure of the novel is very important here, which is imported through a literary device of preserving homogeneity of titular relational attributes of each respective subset of the 55 cities.
I love that now we have an amazing Urdu translation to try to solve this Rubik Cube of novel in the language we love. show less
Zeenat Hisam has done another masterful translation of a modern classic. She has captured the imaginative essence of the novel by achieving the same dream-like quality of William Weaver's English translation. I read some passages more than once to show more test whether I feel suspended between the poetry and prose in Urdu, which is signature Calvino. It happened without fail. I would certainly do a detailed review, however, any future reader or translator must know that geometrical structure of the novel is very important here, which is imported through a literary device of preserving homogeneity of titular relational attributes of each respective subset of the 55 cities.
I love that now we have an amazing Urdu translation to try to solve this Rubik Cube of novel in the language we love. show less
This is a wonderful book, about the joy and complexity of reading. Calvino intersperses his unusual second person narration ("You are about to begin reading...") about a reader whose attempts to read a new novel keep getting interrupted and each time you (he, I) think you have found the continuation of the story it is actually a different, even more intriguing book.
As well as allowing the writer to exhibit a command of language and particularly of voice which is nothing short of breathtaking show more (I especially think of fragments set in Japan and in South America, where I could instantly hear the subtle nuances of accent and a different culture in the narrators' voices), he explores the various things that it means to read a book, to connect with the words on a page and the meaning and experiences, the worlds that they contain.
Calvino explores reading for pleasure and information, for seeking truth and for bolstering ideas already strongly held. He looks at the effects that perceiving possible readers might have on the writer and, most importantly and most powerfully, he points to the power of books and the effect of censorship.
It is one of those books that will leave thoughts and images and, most especially, ideas swirling around my head for a long time to come. As an intellectual exercise "On A Winter's Night A Traveler" is magnificent, but it is also superb as a story, subtly thrilling and funny.
As always with a translation, it must be a work of two minds. Especially with a book as clever and subtle as this, the talent of translator William Weaver should be applauded. show less
As well as allowing the writer to exhibit a command of language and particularly of voice which is nothing short of breathtaking show more (I especially think of fragments set in Japan and in South America, where I could instantly hear the subtle nuances of accent and a different culture in the narrators' voices), he explores the various things that it means to read a book, to connect with the words on a page and the meaning and experiences, the worlds that they contain.
Calvino explores reading for pleasure and information, for seeking truth and for bolstering ideas already strongly held. He looks at the effects that perceiving possible readers might have on the writer and, most importantly and most powerfully, he points to the power of books and the effect of censorship.
It is one of those books that will leave thoughts and images and, most especially, ideas swirling around my head for a long time to come. As an intellectual exercise "On A Winter's Night A Traveler" is magnificent, but it is also superb as a story, subtly thrilling and funny.
As always with a translation, it must be a work of two minds. Especially with a book as clever and subtle as this, the talent of translator William Weaver should be applauded. show less
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler (Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics Series) by Italo Calvino
On the first page of If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, Italo Calvino anoints you (The Reader) as the protagonist of the novel. If you're anything like I was, your eyes will roll a little and you'll mouth the word "gimmick" to yourself. I remember thinking something along the lines of, "Ok pal, let's see how far you can take your little trick. As long as we're not about to do some dopey 'choose your own adventure' thing, I guess I'll be able to stomach this." Weirdly enough, the moment that show more thought popped in my head, Calvino immediately called me out for it.
Calvino was right. I really had become too cynical as a reader, never hoping for much more than a tool to help pass the time. So from that point on, I made a sincere effort to let the book take me wherever it wanted to go. I'm glad I did.
This is a book that could have gone wrong in so many different ways. Half the chapters are written in second person. There are (at least) eleven different plots written in eleven different styles. Metafiction is pervasive, and this was particularly scary for me, because nothing makes me want to set a book on fire like an author hanging around his own story. Calvino, though, never falters once.
Despite the frequent transitions between styles, the prose is airtight. There are a whole lot of locations throughout the various stories that The Reader (me, or I guess it would be you) reads, but it's always clear where we are and what we're doing.
What I found most impressive about each of the ten interrupted narratives is that Calvino uses The Reader's mindset at the time he's reading to influence the way the narrative is presented. A good example is the second story, Outside the Town of Malbork. Before we begin reading, we have a conversation with a woman in a bookstore named Ludmilla, who tells us:
Most importantly, this is a really fun book. I haven't had this much fun reading a book since at least Pale Fire, and it wasn't surprising to me in the slightest when I found out that Vladimir Nabokov was an influence on Calvino. If on a Winter's Night a Traveler reminded me that reading should be a convivial experience, one that connects you to a world of places, actions, and emotions that feel brand new to you whether you've experienced them before or not. This isn't a philosophical heavyweight by any means, but who says great books have to be about something heavy? A book can obviously change your life by making you think, but it can also change your life by enhancing it, by putting you in touch with the aspects of the world that bring you the most joy. I don't consider that to be escapism. That's just living right.
And if you still had any doubts about picking this one up, there's a character that's suffering from terrible writer's block brought about by a poster of Snoopy on his wall. In a very serious voice, he says:
It's not that you expect anything in particular from this particular book. You're the sort of person who, on principle, no longer expects anything of anything. There are plenty, younger than you or less young, who live in the expectation of extraordinary experiences: from books, from people, from journeys, from events, from what tomorrow has in store. But not you. You know that the best you can expect is to avoid the worst.Shit. Guilty as charged. Shame on me.
Calvino was right. I really had become too cynical as a reader, never hoping for much more than a tool to help pass the time. So from that point on, I made a sincere effort to let the book take me wherever it wanted to go. I'm glad I did.
This is a book that could have gone wrong in so many different ways. Half the chapters are written in second person. There are (at least) eleven different plots written in eleven different styles. Metafiction is pervasive, and this was particularly scary for me, because nothing makes me want to set a book on fire like an author hanging around his own story. Calvino, though, never falters once.
Despite the frequent transitions between styles, the prose is airtight. There are a whole lot of locations throughout the various stories that The Reader (me, or I guess it would be you) reads, but it's always clear where we are and what we're doing.
What I found most impressive about each of the ten interrupted narratives is that Calvino uses The Reader's mindset at the time he's reading to influence the way the narrative is presented. A good example is the second story, Outside the Town of Malbork. Before we begin reading, we have a conversation with a woman in a bookstore named Ludmilla, who tells us:
"I prefer novels that bring me immediately into a world where everything is precise, concrete, specific. I feel a special satisfaction in knowing that things are made in that certain fashion and not otherwise, even the most commonplace things that in real life seem indifferent to me."Lo and behold, Outside the Town of Malbork is presented to us in that exact style. We aren't reading straight text. We're reading a brain that's processing the text. That to me is pretty awesome.
Most importantly, this is a really fun book. I haven't had this much fun reading a book since at least Pale Fire, and it wasn't surprising to me in the slightest when I found out that Vladimir Nabokov was an influence on Calvino. If on a Winter's Night a Traveler reminded me that reading should be a convivial experience, one that connects you to a world of places, actions, and emotions that feel brand new to you whether you've experienced them before or not. This isn't a philosophical heavyweight by any means, but who says great books have to be about something heavy? A book can obviously change your life by making you think, but it can also change your life by enhancing it, by putting you in touch with the aspects of the world that bring you the most joy. I don't consider that to be escapism. That's just living right.
And if you still had any doubts about picking this one up, there's a character that's suffering from terrible writer's block brought about by a poster of Snoopy on his wall. In a very serious voice, he says:
"I must take this damned Snoopy down from the wall as quickly as possible, but I can't bring myself to do it."God, I love this book. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 387
- Also by
- 78
- Members
- 69,847
- Popularity
- #187
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 1,121
- ISBNs
- 1,729
- Languages
- 38
- Favorited
- 480
