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

'The most magically ingenious of the contemporary Italian novelists' The Times

About the Author

Italo Calvino (Author)
Italo Calvino was born in Cuba in 1923 and grew up in Italy. He was an essayist and journalist and a member of the editorial staff of Einaudi in Turin. One of the most respected writers of the twentieth century, his best-known works of fiction include Invisible Cities, If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, Marcovaldo and Mr Palomar. In 1973 he won the prestigious Premio Feltrinelli. He died in 1985. A collection of Calvino's posthumous personal writings, The Hermit in Paris, was published in 2003.



William Weaver (Translator)
William Weaver has translated Umberto Eco, Italo Svevo, Primo Levi, Italo Calvino and Roberto Calasso, among others. He is a professor at Bard College.

Reviews
Calvino is surely among the handful of living writers that can be called, without hesitation, great. Each book by Calvino is a completely original conception. Marcovaldo is one of the best works of fiction published * Spectator *
The greatest Italian writer of the twentieth century * Guardian *
It is the refinement, the oddness and the humour of the thoughts he gets which make Calvino a rare pleasure to read; he is a match for Borges as he stealthily patrols the limits of the unthinkable * New Review *
He will continue to glitter, this strange, lonely prospector in the universe of words, well into the next millennium and after, a master in the empire of the imagination * Independent *
What is so much admired by the readers of Mr. Calvino's later Invisible Cities was already at work in Marcovaldo and with a more cogent narrative drive... Marcovaldo conveys the sensuous, tangible qualities of life * New York Times *



Book Information
ISBN 9780099428541
Author Italo Calvino
Format Paperback
Page Count 144
Imprint Vintage Classics
Publisher Vintage Publishing
Weight(grams) 106g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 8mm