If on a Winter's Night a Traveler Introduction by Peter Washington
Italo CalvinoPublished1993
Pages304
Formathardcover
PublisherKnopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Synopsis
Introduction by Peter Washington; Translation by William Weaver
Italo Calvino’s masterpiece combines a love story and a detective story into an exhilarating allegory of reading, in which the reader of the book becomes the book’s central character.
Based on a witty analogy between the reader’s desire to finish the story and the lover’s desire to consummate his or her passion, IF ON A WINTER’S NIGHT A TRAVELER is the tale of two bemused readers whose attempts to reach the end of the same book—IF ON A WINTER’S NIGHT A TRAVELER, by Italo Calvino, of course—are constantly and comically frustrated. In between chasing missing chapters of the book, the hapless readers tangle with an international conspiracy, a rogue translator, an elusive novelist, a disintegrating publishing house, and several oppressive governments. The result is a literary labyrinth of storylines that interrupt one another—an Arabian Nights of the postmodern age.
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About Italo Calvino
I
Italo Calvino
1923–1985
Italo Calvino (Santiago de Las Vegas de La Habana, 15 ottobre 1923 – Siena, 19 settembre 1985) è stato uno scrittore e paroliere italiano. Intellettuale di grande impegno politico, civile e culturale, è stato uno dei narratori italiani più importanti del secondo Novecento. I numerosi campi d'interesse toccati dal suo percorso letterario sono meditati e raccontati attraverso capolavori quali la trilogia de *I nostri antenati, Marcovaldo, Le cosmicomiche, Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore,* uniti dal filo conduttore della riflessione sulla storia e la società contemporanea. ---------- Italo Calvino (Italian: [ˈiːtalo kalˈviːno]; 15 October 1923 – 19 September 1985) was an Italian 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). Lionised in Britain and the United States, he was the most-translated contemporary Italian writer at the time of his death, and a noted contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature.
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