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Italo Calvino

Born

in Santiago de Las Vegas, Cuba

October 15, 1923

Died

September 19, 1985

Genre

Literature & Fiction, Biographies & Memoirs

Influences

Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, Vladimir Nabokov, Marco Polo, Giacomo ...more

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Italo Calvino was born in Cuba and grew up in Italy. He was a journalist and writer of short stories and novels. 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).

His style is not easy to classify; much of his writing has an air reminiscent to that of fantastical 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 simpl ...more

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Italo Calvino’s books

Average rating: 3.96 · 501,013 ratings · 41,335 reviews · 558 distinct works • Similar authors

	If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino, William Weaver (Translator) 4.01 avg rating — 112,760 ratings — published 1979 — 207 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Invisible Cities 4.10 avg rating — 98,015 ratings — published 1972 — 54 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino, Archibald Colquhoun (Translator), Ana Goldstein (Translator) 4.02 avg rating — 53,737 ratings — published 1957 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Il visconte dimezzato 3.82 avg rating — 32,297 ratings — published 1952 — 154 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Il cavaliere inesistente 3.82 avg rating — 25,887 ratings — published 1959 — 145 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno by Italo Calvino, Cesare Pavese (Afterword) 3.78 avg rating — 26,149 ratings — published 1947 — 109 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Cosmicomics 4.15 avg rating — 21,060 ratings — published 1965	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Marcovaldo by Italo Calvino, William Weaver (Translator) 3.83 avg rating — 17,051 ratings — published 1963 — 13 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Difficult Loves by Italo Calvino, William Weaver (Translator), Peggy Wright (Translator) 3.90 avg rating — 12,251 ratings — published 1958 — 98 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Six Memos for the Next Millennium 4.17 avg rating — 10,810 ratings — published 1988 — 112 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Italo Calvino…

Series by Italo Calvino

I nostri antenati (3 books)
by

Italo Calvino

3.93 avg rating — 116,121 ratings

Looking for something epic, stellar, or far out? Perhaps a bit dystopian? Then these authors are your chosen ones to read next! We asked...

82 likes · 10 comments

Quotes by Italo Calvino (?)

“A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.”
― Italo Calvino, The Uses of Literature

tags: books, classics, literature, meaning, reading, words

4783 likes

“Sections in the bookstore

- Books You Haven't Read
- Books You Needn't Read
- Books Made for Purposes Other Than Reading
- Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong to the Category of Books Read Before Being Written
- Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered
- Books You Mean to Read But There Are Others You Must Read First
- Books Too Expensive Now and You'll Wait 'Til They're Remaindered
- Books ditto When They Come Out in Paperback
- Books You Can Borrow from Somebody
- Books That Everybody's Read So It's As If You Had Read Them, Too
- Books You've Been Planning to Read for Ages
- Books You've Been Hunting for Years Without Success
- Books Dealing with Something You're Working on at the Moment
- Books You Want to Own So They'll Be Handy Just in Case
- Books You Could Put Aside Maybe to Read This Summer
- Books You Need to Go with Other Books on Your Shelves
- Books That Fill You with Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified
- Books Read Long Ago Which It's Now Time to Re-read
- Books You've Always Pretended to Have Read and Now It's Time to Sit Down and Really Read Them”
― Italo Calvino, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler

tags: books, humor, reading

2003 likes

“Melancholy is sadness that has taken on lightness.”
― Italo Calvino

tags: melancholy

1741 likes

See all Italo Calvino's quotes »

Polls

December 2015 New School Classics Group Read

1908, Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, 320 pages

24 votes, 18.5%

1972, Watership Down by Richard Adams, 481 pages

17 votes, 13.1%

1969, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, 304 pages

15 votes, 11.5%

1920, This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 288 pages

13 votes, 10.0%

1966, The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, 360 pages

11 votes, 8.5%

1940, The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene, 222 pages

7 votes, 5.4%

1987, Beloved by Toni Morrison, 324 pages

6 votes, 4.6%

1963, The Collector by John Fowles, 283 pages

6 votes, 4.6%

1950, A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute, 359 pages

6 votes, 4.6%

1982, The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa, 544 pages

5 votes, 3.8%

1974, Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt, 144 pages

5 votes, 3.8%

1995, The Reader by Bernhard Schlink, 216 pages

4 votes, 3.1%

1935, BUtterfield 8 by John O'Hara, 256 pages

4 votes, 3.1%

1988, A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark, 192 pages

3 votes, 2.3%

1986, Why Read the Classics? by Italo Calvino, 288 pages

2 votes, 1.5%

1937, Christ in Concrete by Pietro Di Donato, 256 pages

1 vote, 0.8%

1974, The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier, 267 pages

1 vote, 0.8%

130 total votes

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