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Marcovaldo: or the Seasons in the City (Paperback)

Marcovaldo: or the Seasons in the City By Italo Calvino Cover Image
$19.99
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Description


A charming portrait of one man’s dreams and schemes, by “the greatest Italian writer of the twentieth century” (Guardian).

In this enchanting book of linked stories, Italo Calvino charts the disastrous schemes of an Italian peasant, an unskilled worker in a drab northern industrial city in the 1950s and ’60s, struggling to reconcile his old country habits with his current urban life.

Marcovaldo has a practiced eye for spotting natural beauty and an unquenchable longing for the unspoiled rural world of his imagination. Much to the continuing puzzlement of his wife, his children, his boss, and his neighbors, he chases his dreams and gives rein to his fantasies, whether it’s sleeping in the great outdoors on a park bench, following a stray cat, or trying to catch wasps. Unfortunately, the results are never quite what he anticipates.

Spanning from the 1950s to the 1960s, the twenty stories in Marcovaldo are alternately comic and melancholy, farce and fantasy. Throughout, Calvino’s unassuming masterpiece “conveys the sensuous, tangible qualities of life” (New York Times).

Translated from the Italian by William Weaver.

About the Author


ITALO CALVINO (1923–1985) attained worldwide renown as one of the twentieth century’s greatest storytellers. Born in Cuba, he was raised in San Remo, Italy, and later lived in Turin, Paris, Rome, and elsewhere. Among his many works are Invisible Cities, If on a winters night a traveler, The Baron in the Trees, and other novels, as well as numerous collections of fiction, folktales, criticism, and essays. His works have been translated into dozens of languages.


Product Details
ISBN: 9780156572040
ISBN-10: 0156572044
Publisher: Mariner Books Classics
Publication Date: November 16th, 1983
Pages: 128
Language: English
Series: Helen and Kurt Wolff Books

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