Italo Calvino: short biography, best works, quotes

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:40

You must have heard of one of the most published authors of the 80s, whose works have been translated into dozens of languages. We are talking about Italo Calvino, an Italian writer, journalist and publicist. Let's take a closer look at his personality and creativity.

Brief historical background

The writer's full birth name is Italo Giovanni Calvino Mameli. An Italian citizen, he was born on 1923-15-10 in Santiago de Las Vegas (Havana) and died at the age of 61 (1985-19-09) in Siena (Italian region of Tuscany).

The works of prose writer, journalist and publicist Italo Calvino are written in Italian. The main direction of his work is postmodernism. Quite a long period of I. Calvino's life - 1947-1985 - was devoted to writing. The debut work that brought fame to the writer was "The Path of Spider Nests".

A kindergarten "Italo Calvino" has been opened in Moscow and there is an Italian language school bearing the same name. In order not to confuse the writer's fans, we note that these organizationshave nothing to do with it.

Writer's biography

Italo Calvino was born near Havana, Cuba. Soon his family moved to Italy, and the writer spent his childhood in San Remo. His studies at the university in the agricultural speci alty were interrupted by the Second World War - in 1943, the young man joined the partisan movement.

In 1945 he moved to Turin, where he began to publish in various newspapers. The year before, Italo Calvino became a member of the Italian Communist Party. He also continues the interrupted studies, but already at the philological faculty. In 1947 he graduated from the institute, began working in the newspaper L'Unità.

From journalism, he smoothly moves to writing. Italo Calvino published the first neo-realistic story, based on his own experience as a partisan, "The Path of Spider Nests", with the help of friends - E. Vitorini and C. Pavese. In 1949, he released a collection in the same style - "Last comes the raven." Then the neo-realistic book "Youths from the banks of the Po" is published, which became the final one in this genre.

Since 1952, Italo Calvino has devoted himself to science fiction - his trilogy "Our Ancestors" comes out, which combines "The Non-Existent Knight", "The Baron in the Tree", "The Bifurcated Viscount". Speaking in general terms, it allegorically describes the image of a modern person for the writer.

And in 1956, Calvino unexpectedly published a collection of folklore "Italian Tales". The following year, he leaves the Communist Party, outraged by the suppression of the uprising in Hungary.troops of the Soviet Union. He explains his decision in the newspaper L'Unità. In 1963 he published the children's collection "Marcovaldo".

In 1964 he arrives in Cuba, the country of his birth. The journey was marked for him by a meeting with Che Guevara and an acquaintance with Esther Judith Singer, who becomes Calvino's wife. In the same year, the writer arrives in Paris. There he met K.-L. Strauss and R. Barth. During this period, his interests included sociology, semiotics and cosmology. This is reflected in his writing - he publishes "Cosmo-comic stories", "Castle of Crossed Fates".

Then his works began to go more into a fantastic and surreal niche. These include the famous book by Italo Calvino "Invisible Cities" and "If one winter night a traveler …".

1975 for the writer was marked by the fact that he was recognized as an honorary member of the US Academy. He then receives the Austrian Prize for European Literature. The last work of Calvino was the collection "Palomar" (1983). In 1985, the writer died.

Awards

The work of Italo Calvino has received a number of notable awards:

• Sh. Veyona in the field of Italian language.
• Viareggio.
• Feltrinelli.
• Austrian State Prize for European Literature.
• Commander of the Order of the Legion of Honor.

The author's best books

If we look at the rating of works compiled by readers, thenwe can make a list like this (from most favorite to least liked books):

1. "If one winter night a traveler…" is a postmodern prose work that includes 10 short stories.
2. "Invisible Cities" - you will be surprised how this work resembles Boccaccio's "Decameron". It is interesting that the chapters of the book are built according to the laws of divination on Tarot cards. This seminal postmodern piece will immerse the reader in Marco Polo's travels in China.
3. "Our Ancestors" - a trilogy tells about life, its real and false values, the vicissitudes of fate.
4. "Castle of Crossed Fates" - the heroes of the work here will tell you about their destinies, laying out Tarot cards.
5. "Cosmo-comic stories" - ironic theories of the origin of the universe, the origin of life on Earth.

Quotes by I. Calvino

In conclusion, we present you the most striking statements of the writer:

• "Reading is always loneliness. Reading together, we each read alone."
• "As long as I know that someone performs tricks for the sake of addiction to them, that someone reads for the love of reading, I am sure that life goes on."
• "The hell of the living is what we live in here and now. There are two ways that will free us from suffering because of it. The first is to accept hell, to become a part of it. The second is to learn to recognize it so as not be in the clutches of hell".
• "Unfulfilled future -a dry branch of the past".

That's all we wanted to tell you about Italo Calvino. We hope that you will get acquainted with his unusual work, if today you learned about it for the first time.