Editing Italo Calvino

{{Short description|Italian author (1923–1985)}}
{{redirect|Calvino}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2021}}
{{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] -->
| name = Italo Calvino
| image = Italo-Calvino.jpg
| caption = 
| birth_name = Italo Giovanni Calvino Mameli
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1923|10|15}}
| birth_place = [[Santiago de Las Vegas]], Cuba
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1985|9|19|1923|10|15}}
| death_place = [[Siena]], Tuscany, Italy
| occupation = {{csl|Novelist|short story writer}}
| nationality = Italian
| spouse = Esther Judith Singer
| children = 1
| movement = [[Oulipo]], [[Neorealism (art)|neorealism]], [[Postmodern literature|Postmodernism]]
| notableworks = {{Plainlist|
* ''[[The Baron in the Trees]]''
* ''[[Invisible Cities]]''
* ''[[If on a winter's night a traveler]]''<!-- The rules of capitalization are intentionally ignored by the author; only the word "If" is capitalized. -->
* ''[[Six Memos for the Next Millennium]]''}}
| resting_place = Garden cemetery of [[Castiglione della Pescaia]], Italy
}}

'''Italo Calvino''' ({{IPAc-en|k|æ|l|ˈ|v|iː|n|oʊ}},<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/calvino|title=Calvino|work=[[Collins English Dictionary]]|publisher=[[HarperCollins]]|access-date=2 August 2019|archive-date=7 March 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230307163818/https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/calvino|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite dictionary |url=http://www.lexico.com/definition/Calvino,+Italo |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220826192111/https://www.dictionary.com/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=2022-08-26 |title=Calvino, Italo |dictionary=[[Lexico]] UK English Dictionary |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]}}</ref> {{IPAc-en|alsoUS|k|ɑː|l|ˈ|-}};<ref>{{Cite American Heritage Dictionary|Calvino|access-date=2 August 2019}}</ref> {{IPA|it|ˈiːtalo kalˈviːno|lang}};<ref name="Mi_chiamo">{{YouTube|XdOVC5PdWQk|"Mi chiamo Italo Calvino"}}. RAI (circa 1970), retrieved 25 October 2012.</ref> 15 October 1923&nbsp;– 19 September 1985) was an Italian novelist and short story writer. 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).

Admired in Britain, Australia and the United States, Calvino was the most translated contemporary Italian writer at the time of his death.<ref>McLaughlin, ''Italo Calvino'', xii.</ref> He is buried in the garden cemetery of [[Castiglione della Pescaia]] in [[Tuscany]].

==Biography==

===Parents===
Italo Calvino was born in [[Santiago de las Vegas]], a suburb of [[Havana]], Cuba, in 1923. His father, {{ill|Mario Calvino|lt=Mario|it}}, was a tropical [[agronomist]] and [[botanist]] who also taught agriculture and [[floriculture]].<ref>Calvino, 'Objective Biographical Notice', ''Hermit in Paris'', 160.</ref> Born 47 years earlier in [[Sanremo]], Italy, Mario Calvino had emigrated to [[Mexico]] in 1909 where he took up an important position with the [[Ministry of Agriculture]]. In an autobiographical essay, Italo Calvino explained that his father "had been in his youth an [[anarchist]], a follower of [[Kropotkin]] and then a Socialist Reformist".<ref name="ReferenceA">Calvino, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', ''Hermit in Paris'', 132.</ref> In 1917, Mario left for Cuba to conduct scientific experiments, after living through the [[Mexican Revolution]].

Calvino's mother, Giuliana Luigia Evelina "Eva" Mameli, was a botanist and university professor.<ref>Paola Govoni, [https://www.academia.edu/7940709/The_Making_of_Italo_Calvino_Women_and_Men_in_the_Two_Cultures_Home_Laboratory "The Making of Italo Calvino: Women and Men in the ‘Two Cultures’ Home Laboratory"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191015114642/https://www.academia.edu/7940709/The_Making_of_Italo_Calvino_Women_and_Men_in_the_Two_Cultures_Home_Laboratory |date=15 October 2019 }} in ''Writing about Lives in Science: (Auto)Biography, Gender, and Genre'', eds. P. Govoni and Z.A. Franceschi, Goettingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht/V&R Unipress, 2014, pp. 187–221. Retrieved 4 February 2015</ref> A native of [[Sassari]] in Sardinia and 11 years younger than her husband, she married while still a junior lecturer at [[Pavia University]].  Born into a secular family, Eva was a [[pacifist]] educated in the "religion of civic duty and science".<ref>Calvino, "Political Autobiography of a Young Man", ''Hermit in Paris'', 132.</ref> Eva gave Italo his unusual first name to remind him of his Italian heritage, although he would eventually grow up in Italy. Calvino thought his name sounded "belligerently nationalist".<ref>Calvino, ''Hermit in Paris'', pp. 14.</ref> Calvino described his parents as being "very different in personality from one another",<ref name="ReferenceA"/> suggesting perhaps deeper tensions behind a comfortable, albeit strict, [[middle-class]] upbringing devoid of conflict. As an adolescent, he found it hard to relate to [[poverty]] and the [[working-class]], and was "ill at ease" with his parents' openness to the labourers who filed into his father's study on Saturdays to receive their weekly paycheck.<ref>Calvino, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', ''Hermit in Paris'', 135.</ref>

===Early life and education===
In 1925, less than two years after Calvino's birth, the family returned to Italy and settled permanently in [[Sanremo]] on the [[Liguria]]n coast. Calvino's brother Floriano, who became a distinguished geologist, was born in 1927. The family divided their time between the Villa Meridiana, an experimental floriculture station which also served as their home, and Mario's ancestral land at San Giovanni Battista. On this small working farm set in the hills behind Sanremo, Mario pioneered the cultivation of the then exotic fruits such as [[avocado]] and [[grapefruit]], eventually obtaining an entry in the {{lang|it|Dizionario biografico degli italiani}} for his achievements. The vast forests and luxuriant fauna omnipresent in Calvino's early fiction such as ''[[The Baron in the Trees]]'' derive from this "legacy". In an interview, Calvino stated that "San Remo continues to pop out in my books, in the most diverse pieces of writing."<ref>Corti, ''Autografo 2'' (October 1985): 51.</ref>

Calvino and Floriano would climb the tree-rich estate and perch for hours on the branches reading their favourite adventure stories.<ref>Weiss, ''Understanding Italo Calvino'', 2.</ref> Less salubrious aspects of this "paternal legacy" are described in ''[[The Road to San Giovanni]]'', Calvino's memoir of his father in which he exposes their inability to communicate: "Talking to each other was difficult. Both verbose by nature, possessed of an ocean of words, in each other's presence we became mute, would walk in silence side by side along the road to San Giovanni."<ref>Calvino, ''The Road to San Giovanni'', 10.</ref> A fan of [[Rudyard Kipling]]'s ''[[The Jungle Book]]'' as a child, Calvino felt that his early interest in stories made him the "black sheep" of a family that held literature in less esteem than the sciences. Fascinated by American movies and cartoons, he was equally attracted to drawing, poetry, and theatre. On a darker note, Calvino recalled that his earliest memory was of a [[Marxist]] professor who had been brutally assaulted by [[Benito Mussolini]]'s [[Blackshirts]]. He said: "I remember clearly that we were at dinner when the old professor came in with his face beaten up and bleeding, his bowtie all torn up over it, asking for help."<ref name="ReferenceB">Calvino, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', ''Hermit in Paris'', 130.</ref>

Other legacies include the parents' beliefs in [[Freemasonry]], [[republicanism]] with elements of [[anarchism]] and [[Marxism]].<ref>McLaughlin, xii. Calvino defined his family's traditions as "a humanitarian Socialism, and before that Mazzinianism". Cf. Calvino, 'Behind the Success' in ''Hermit in Paris'', 223.</ref> Austere freethinkers with an intense hatred of the ruling [[National Fascist Party]], Eva and Mario also refused to give their sons any education in the Catholic Faith or any other religion.<ref name="ReferenceD">Weiss, ''Understanding Italo Calvino'', 3.</ref> Italo attended the English nursery school St George's College, followed by a Protestant elementary private school run by [[Waldensians]]. His secondary schooling, with a classical [[lyceum#Italy|lyceum]] curriculum, was completed at the state-run Liceo Gian Domenico Cassini where, at his parents' request, he was exempted from religion classes but frequently asked to justify his anti-conformism to teachers, janitors, and fellow pupils.<ref>Calvino, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', ''Hermit in Paris'', 133.</ref> In his mature years, Calvino described the experience as having made him "tolerant of others' opinions, particularly in the field of religion, remembering how irksome it was to hear myself mocked because I did not follow the majority's beliefs".<ref>Calvino, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', ''Hermit in Paris'', 134.</ref> In 1938, [[Eugenio Scalfari]], who went on to found the weekly magazine {{lang|it|[[L'Espresso]]}} and {{lang|it|[[La Repubblica]]}}, a major Italian newspaper, came from [[Civitavecchia]] to join the same class though a year younger, and they shared the same desk.<ref>Sabina Minardi,['Eugenio Scalfari: «Io e Calvino nel segno di Atena» ,'] [[L'Espresso]] 15 September 2015.</ref> The two teenagers formed a lasting friendship, Calvino attributing his political awakening to their university discussions. Seated together "on a huge flat stone in the middle of a stream near our land",<ref name="ReferenceB"/> he and Scalfari founded a university movement called the MUL. Eva managed to delay her son's enrolment in the Party's armed scouts, the {{lang|it|[[Opera Nazionale Balilla|Balilla Moschettieri]]}}, and then arranged that he be excused, as a non-Catholic, from performing devotional acts in Church.<ref>Calvino, "Political Autobiography of a Young Man", ''Hermit in Paris'', 134.</ref> But later on, as a compulsory member, he could not avoid the assemblies and parades of the {{lang|it|[[Avanguardisti]]}},<ref>Calvino, 'The Duce's Portraits', ''Hermit in Paris'', 210.</ref> and was forced to participate in the Italian invasion of the [[French Riviera]] in June 1940.<ref name="ReferenceD" />

===World War II===
In 1941, Calvino enrolled at the [[University of Turin]], choosing the Agriculture Faculty where his father had previously taught courses in [[agronomy]]. Concealing his literary ambitions to please his family, he passed four exams in his first year while reading anti-Fascist works by [[Elio Vittorini]], [[Eugenio Montale]], [[Cesare Pavese]], [[Johan Huizinga]], and Pisacane, and works by [[Max Planck]], [[Werner Heisenberg]], and [[Albert Einstein]] on physics.<ref>Calvino, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', ''Hermit in Paris'', 140.</ref> Calvino's real aspiration was to be a playwright. His letters to [[Eugenio Scalfari]] overflow with references to Italian and foreign plays, and with plots and characters of future theatrical projects. [[Luigi Pirandello]] and [[Gabriele D'Annunzio]], Cesare Vico Lodovici and [[Ugo Betti]], [[Eugene O'Neill]] and [[Thornton Wilder]] are among the main authors Calvino cites as his sources of inspiration.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Ferrara|first=Enrica Maria|title=Calvino e il teatro|publisher=Peter Lang|year=2011|isbn=978-3-0353-0099-4|location=|pages=}}</ref> Disdainful of Turin students, Calvino saw himself as enclosed in a "provincial shell"<ref name="ReferenceC">Calvino, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', ''Hermit in Paris'', 138.</ref> that offered the illusion of immunity from the Fascist nightmare: "We were ‘hard guys’ from the provinces, hunters, snooker-players, show-offs, proud of our lack of intellectual sophistication, contemptuous of any patriotic or military rhetoric, coarse in our speech, regulars in the brothels, dismissive of any romantic sentiment and desperately devoid of women."<ref name="ReferenceC"/>

Calvino transferred to the [[University of Florence]] in 1943 and reluctantly passed three more exams in agriculture. By the end of the year, the Germans had succeeded in occupying Liguria and setting up [[Benito Mussolini]]'s puppet [[Republic of Salò]] in northern Italy. Now twenty years old, Calvino refused military service and went into hiding. Reading intensely in a wide array of subjects, he also reasoned politically that, of all the [[Partisan (political)|partisan]] groupings, the [[Communist Party of Italy|communists]] were the best organized with "the most convincing political line".<ref>Calvino recalled this sudden, forced transformation of a dreamy adolescent into a partisan soldier as one bounded by logic since "the logic of the Resistance was the very logic of our urge towards life". Calvino, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', ''Hermit in Paris'', 146.</ref>

In spring 1944, Eva encouraged her sons to enter the [[Italian resistance movement|Italian Resistance]] in the name of "natural justice and family virtues".<ref name="autogenerated1">Calvino, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', ''Hermit in Paris'', 142.</ref> Using the nom de guerre "Santiago", Calvino joined the ''Garibaldi Brigades'', a clandestine Communist group and, for twenty months, endured the fighting in the [[Maritime Alps]] until 1945 and the [[Victory in Europe Day|Liberation]]. As a result of his refusal to be a conscript, his parents were held hostage by the [[Nazis]] for an extended period at the Villa Meridiana. Calvino wrote of his mother's ordeal that "she was an example of tenacity and courage… behaving with dignity and firmness before the [[SS]] and the Fascist militia, and in her long detention as a hostage, not least when the [[blackshirts]] three times pretended to shoot my father in front of her eyes. The historical events which mothers take part in acquire the greatness and invincibility of natural phenomena".<ref name="autogenerated1"/>

===Turin and communism===
Calvino settled in [[Turin]] in 1945, after a long hesitation over living there or in [[Milan]].<ref>The decision was influenced by the firmly anti-Fascist stance of Turin during Mussolini's years in power. Cf. Calvino, 'Behind the Success' in ''Hermit in Paris'', 225.</ref> He often humorously belittled this choice, describing Turin as a "city that is serious but sad". Returning to university, he abandoned Agriculture for the Arts Faculty. A year later, he was initiated into the literary world by [[Elio Vittorini]], who published his short story {{lang|it|"Andato al comando"}} (1945; "Gone to Headquarters") in {{lang|it|[[Il Politecnico]]}}, a Turin-based weekly magazine associated with the university.<ref>{{lang|it|Il Politecnico}} was founded by Elio Vittorini, a novelist and the leading leftist intellectual of postwar Italy, who saw it as a means to restore Italy's diminished standing within the European cultural mainstream. Cf. Weiss, ''Understanding Italo Calvino'', 3.</ref> The horror of the war had not only provided the raw material for his literary ambitions but deepened his commitment to the Communist cause. Viewing civilian life as a continuation of the partisan struggle, he confirmed his membership in the [[Italian Communist Party]]. On reading [[Vladimir Lenin]]'s ''[[State and Revolution]]'', he plunged into post-war political life, associating himself chiefly with the worker's movement in Turin.<ref>Calvino, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', ''Hermit in Paris'', 143.</ref>

In 1947, he graduated with a Master's thesis on [[Joseph Conrad]], wrote short stories in his spare time, and landed a job in the publicity department at the Einaudi publishing house run by [[Giulio Einaudi]]. Although brief, his stint put him in regular contact with [[Cesare Pavese]], [[Natalia Ginzburg]], [[Norberto Bobbio]], and many other left-wing intellectuals and writers. He then left Einaudi to work as a journalist for the official Communist daily, {{lang|it|[[l'Unità]]}}, and the newborn Communist political magazine, {{lang|it|Rinascita}}. During this period, Pavese and poet [[Alfonso Gatto]] were Calvino's closest friends and mentors.<ref>Calvino, 'Behind the Success' in ''Hermit in Paris'', 224.</ref>

His first novel, {{lang|it|Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno}} (''[[The Path to the Nest of Spiders]]'') written with valuable editorial advice from Pavese, won the Premio Riccione on publication in 1947.<ref>Critic Martin McLaughlin points out that the novel failed to win the more prestigious Premio Mondadori. McLaughlin, xiii.</ref> With sales topping 5000 copies, a surprise success in postwar Italy, the novel inaugurated Calvino's [[Neorealism (art)|neorealist]] period. In a clairvoyant essay, Pavese praised the young writer as a "squirrel of the pen" who "climbed into the trees, more for fun than fear, to observe partisan life as a fable of the forest".<ref>Pavese's review first published in {{lang|it|l'Unità}} on 26 September 1947. Quoted in Weiss, ''Understanding Italo Calvino'', 39.</ref> In 1948, he interviewed one of his literary idols, [[Ernest Hemingway]], travelling with [[Natalia Ginzburg]] to his home in [[Stresa]].

{{lang|it|Ultimo viene il corvo}} (''[[The Crow Comes Last]]''), a collection of stories based on his wartime experiences, was published to acclaim in 1949. Despite the triumph, Calvino grew increasingly worried by his inability to compose a worthy second novel. He returned to Einaudi in 1950, responsible this time for the literary volumes. He eventually became a consulting editor, a position that allowed him to hone his writing talent, discover new writers, and develop into "a reader of texts".<ref>Weiss, ''Understanding Italo Calvino'', 4.</ref> In late 1951, presumably to advance in the Communist Party, he spent two months in the [[Soviet Union]] as a correspondent for {{lang|it|l'Unità}}. While in Moscow, he learned of his father's death on 25 October. The articles and correspondence he produced from this visit were published in 1952, winning the Saint-Vincent Prize for journalism.

Over a seven-year period, Calvino wrote three realist novels, ''The White Schooner'' (1947–1949), ''Youth in Turin'' (1950–1951), and ''The Queen's Necklace'' (1952–54), but all were deemed defective.<ref>Of the three manuscripts, only ''Youth in Turin'' was published in the review {{lang|it|Officina}} in 1957.</ref> Calvino's first efforts as a fictionist were marked with his experience in the Italian resistance during the Second World War, however, his acclamation as a writer of fantastic stories came in the 1950s.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Encyclopedia of the City|last=Caves|first=R. W.|publisher=Routledge|year=2004|pages=63}}</ref> During the eighteen months it took to complete {{lang|it|I giovani del Po}} (''Youth in Turin''), he made an important self-discovery: "I began doing what came most naturally to me – that is, following the memory of the things I had loved best since boyhood. Instead of making myself write the book I ''ought'' to write, the novel that was expected of me, I conjured up the book I myself would have liked to read, the sort by an unknown writer, from another age and another country, discovered in an attic."<ref>Calvino, 'Introduction by the author', ''Our Ancestors'', vii.</ref> The result was {{lang|it|Il visconte dimezzato}} (1952; ''[[The Cloven Viscount]]'') composed in 30 days between July and September 1951. The protagonist, a seventeenth-century viscount sundered in two by a cannonball, incarnated Calvino's growing political doubts and the divisive turbulence of the [[Cold War]].<ref>Calvino, 'Introduction by the author', ''Our Ancestors'', x.</ref> Skilfully interweaving elements of the [[fable]] and the [[fantasy]] genres, the [[allegorical]] novel launched him as a modern "[[fabulist]]".<ref>Calvino, 'Objective Biographical Notice', ''Hermit in Paris'', 163.</ref> In 1954, Giulio Einaudi commissioned his {{lang|it|Fiabe italiane}} (1956; ''[[Italian Folktales]]'') on the basis of the question, "Is there an Italian equivalent of the [[Brothers Grimm]]?"<ref>Calvino, 'Objective Biographical Notice', ''Hermit in Paris'', 164.</ref> For two years, Calvino collated tales found in 19th century collections across Italy then translated 200 of the finest from various dialects into Italian.  Key works he read at this time were [[Vladimir Propp]]'s ''Morphology of the Folktale'' and ''Historical Roots of Russian Fairy Tales'', stimulating his own ideas on the origin, shape and function of the story.<ref>Calvino, 'Introduction', ''Italian Folktales'', xxvii.</ref>

In 1952 Calvino wrote with [[Giorgio Bassani]] for {{lang|it|[[Botteghe Oscure]]}}, a magazine named after the popular name of the party's head offices in Rome. He also worked for {{lang|it|Il Contemporaneo}}, a [[Marxist]] weekly.

From 1955 to 1958 Calvino had an affair with Italian actress [[Elsa De Giorgi]], a married, older woman. Excerpts of the hundreds of love letters Calvino wrote to her were published in the {{lang|it|[[Corriere della Sera]]}} in 2004, causing some controversy.<ref>[http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2004/08/20/calvino_ed3_.php Italian novelist's love letters turn political]{{Dead link|date=June 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, ''International Herald Tribune'', 20 August 2004</ref>

===After communism===
In 1957, disillusioned by the 1956 [[Soviet invasion of Hungary]], Calvino left the Italian Communist Party. In his letter of resignation published in {{lang|it|[[l'Unità]]}} on 7 August, he explained the reason for his dissent (the violent suppression of the Hungarian uprising and the revelation of [[Joseph Stalin]]'s crimes) while confirming his "confidence in the democratic perspectives" of world Communism.<ref>Cf. Barenghi and Bruno, "Cronologia" in {{lang|it|Romanzi e racconti di Italo Calvino}}, LXXIV; and Calvino, "The Summer of '56" in ''Hermit in Paris'', 200</ref> He withdrew from taking an active role in politics and never joined another party.<ref>"For some years now I have stopped being a member of the Communist party, and I have not joined any other party." "Political Autobiography of a Young Man" in ''Hermit in Paris'', 154</ref> Ostracized by the PCI party leader [[Palmiro Togliatti]] and his supporters on publication of ''Becalmed in the Antilles'' ({{lang|it|La gran bonaccia delle Antille}}), a satirical allegory of the party's immobilism, Calvino began writing ''[[The Baron in the Trees]]''. Completed in three months and published in 1957, the fantasy is based on the "problem of the intellectual's political commitment at a time of shattered illusions".<ref>Calvino, "Introduction" in ''Our Ancestors'', x</ref> He found new outlets for his periodic writings in the journals {{lang|it|Città aperta}} and {{lang|it|Tempo presente}}, the magazine {{lang|it|Passato e presente}}, and the weekly {{lang|it|Italia Domani}}. With Vittorini in 1959, he became co-editor of {{lang|it|[[Il Menabò di letteratura|'Il Menabò]]}}, a cultural journal devoted to literature in the modern industrial age, a position he held until 1966.<ref>McLaughlin, ''Italo Calvino'', 51</ref>

Despite severe restrictions in the US against foreigners holding communist views, Calvino was allowed to visit the United States, where he stayed six months from 1959 to 1960 (four of which he spent in New York), after an invitation by the [[Ford Foundation]]. Calvino was particularly impressed by the "New World": "Naturally I visited the South and also California, but I always felt a New Yorker. My city is New York."  The letters he wrote to Einaudi describing this visit to the United States were first published as  "American Diary 1959–1960" in ''[[Hermit in Paris]]'' in 2003.

In 1962 Calvino met Argentinian translator Esther Judith Singer ("Chichita") and married her in 1964 in [[Havana]], during a trip in which he visited his birthplace and was introduced to [[Ernesto "Che" Guevara]]. On 15 October 1967, a few days after Guevara's death, Calvino wrote a tribute to him that was published in Cuba in 1968, and in Italy thirty years later.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://fullmoonfever.wordpress.com/category/che-guevara/|title=Che Guevara|website=Full Moon Fever|access-date=6 September 2020|archive-date=23 September 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200923181541/https://fullmoonfever.wordpress.com/category/che-guevara/|url-status=live}}</ref> He and his wife settled in Rome in via Monte Brianzo where their daughter, Giovanna, was born in 1965. Once again working for Einaudi, Calvino began publishing some of his "[[Cosmicomics]]" in {{lang|it|Il Caffè}}, a literary magazine.

===Later life and work===
Vittorini's death in 1966 greatly affected Calvino. He went through what he called an "intellectual depression", which the writer himself described as an important passage in his life: "I ceased to be young. Perhaps it's a metabolic process, something that comes with age, I'd been young for a long time, perhaps too long, suddenly I felt that I had to begin my old age, yes, old age, perhaps with the hope of prolonging it by beginning it early."

Amid the atmosphere that would evolve into 1968's cultural revolution (the [[French May]]), he and his family moved to Paris in 1967, taking up residence in a villa in the {{ill|Square de Châtillon|fr|Square de Châtillon}}. Nicknamed {{lang|fr|l'ironique amusé}}, Calvino was invited by [[Raymond Queneau]] in 1968 to join the [[Oulipo]] ({{lang|fr|Ouvroir de littérature potentielle}}) group of experimental writers where he met [[Roland Barthes]] and [[Georges Perec]], who would influence his later work.<ref>McLaughlin, ''Italo Calvino'', xv.</ref> That same year, he turned down the [[Viareggio Prize]] for {{lang|it|Ti con zero}} (''Time and the Hunter'') on the grounds that it was an award given by "institutions emptied of meaning".<ref>Barenghi and Falcetto, 'Cronologia' in {{lang|it|Romanzi e racconti di Italo Calvino}}, LXXVII</ref> He accepted, however, both the Asti Prize and the [[Feltrinelli Prize]] for his writing in 1970 and 1972, respectively. In two autobiographical essays published in 1962 and 1970, Calvino described himself as "atheist" and his outlook as "non-religious".<ref>Cf. "Political Autobiography of a Young Man" and "Objective Biographical Notice" in ''Hermit in Paris'', 133, 162</ref>

{{Quote box |width=300px |align=right|quoted=true |bgcolor=#FFFFF0 |salign=center
|quote  =<poem>
The catalogue of forms is endless: until every shape has found its city, new cities will continue to be born. When the forms exhaust their variety and come apart, the end of cities begins.</poem> |source =From ''[[Invisible Cities]]''  (1974) }}

Calvino had more significant contact with the academic world, notably at the [[University of Paris|Sorbonne]] (with Barthes) and the University of [[Urbino]]. His literary interests spanned multiple periods, genres, and languages, including [[Honoré de Balzac]], [[Ludovico Ariosto]], [[Dante]], [[Ignatius of Loyola]], [[Cervantes]], [[Shakespeare]], [[Cyrano de Bergerac]], and [[Giacomo Leopardi]]. 

Between 1972 and 1973, Calvino published two short stories, "The Name, the Nose" and the [[Oulipo]]-inspired "[[The Burning of the Abominable House]]", in the Italian edition of ''[[Playboy]]''. He also became a regular contributor to the Italian newspaper {{lang|it|[[Corriere della Sera]]}}. During this period, Calvino spent his summer vacations in a house constructed in the pinewood of [[Roccamare]], in [[Castiglione della Pescaia]], [[Tuscany]].

In 1975, Calvino was made an Honorary Member of the [[American Academy in Rome|American Academy]]. Awarded the [[Austrian State Prize for European Literature]] in 1976, he visited Mexico, Japan, and the United States, where he gave a series of lectures in several American cities. After his mother died in 1978 at the age of 92, Calvino sold Villa Meridiana, the family home in San Remo. Two years later, he moved to Rome in Piazza Campo Marzio near the [[Pantheon, Rome|Pantheon]] and began editing the work of [[Tommaso Landolfi]] for Rizzoli. Awarded the French {{lang|fr|[[Légion d'honneur]]}} in 1981, he also accepted the role of jury president for the [[38th Venice International Film Festival|38th]] [[Venice Film Festival]].

During the summer of 1985, Calvino prepared a series of texts on literature for the [[Charles Eliot Norton Lectures]] to be delivered at [[Harvard University]] in the fall. On September 6, 1985, Calvino suffered a stroke in his villa in Roccamare, where he was preparing for a lecture tour of the United States. Initially hospitalized at the Misericordia hospital in Grosseto, he was transferred to the hospital of [[Santa Maria della Scala (Siena)|Santa Maria della Scala]] in [[Siena, Italy|Siena]] (now a museum). After partially regaining consciousness, his condition worsened and he died during the night of 18/19 September of a [[cerebral haemorrhage]], aged sixty-one.<ref name="IC_death">{{cite web |url=https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo_Calvino#La_morte|title=Italo Calvino: Death |website=it.wikipedia.org  |access-date=26 November 2024 |language=it}}</ref>{{Circular reference|date=February 2025}}<ref name="bookb">{{cite web|title=Book Browse's Favorite Quotes|url=https://www.bookbrowse.com/quotes/detail/index.cfm/quote_number/98/a-classic-is-a-book-that-has-never-finished-saying-what-it-has-to-say|publisher=Book Browse|access-date=28 December 2014|archive-date=10 August 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210810073842/https://www.bookbrowse.com/quotes/detail/index.cfm/quote_number/377/a-classic-is-a-book-that-has-never-finished-saying-what-it-has-to-say;jsessionid=13C39216FC95011A6C3930E1A9F21388.cfusion?CFID=59635138&CFTOKEN=37fcc95fd3afde54-D5D2187F-E07E-0A30-50BE90D6E28B6C42|url-status=live}}</ref> He is buried in the cemetery-garden of Castiglione della Pescaia.<ref name="IC_death"/> His lecture notes were published posthumously in Italian in 1988 and in English as ''[[Six Memos for the Next Millennium]]'' in 1993.

== Authors he helped publish ==
* [[Mario Rigoni Stern]]
* [[Gianni Celati]]
* [[Andrea De Carlo]]
* [[Daniele Del Giudice]]
* [[Leonardo Sciascia]]

== Selected publications ==
A selected bibliography of Calvino's writings follows, listing the works that have been published in English translation, along with a few major untranslated works. More exhaustive bibliographies can be found in [[Martin McLaughlin (academic)|Martin McLaughlin]]'s ''Italo Calvino'' and Beno Weiss's ''Understanding Italo Calvino''.<ref>McLaughlin, ''Italo Calvino'', 174–184</ref><ref>Weiss, ''Understanding Italo Calvino'', 217–226</ref>

===Fiction===
{| class="wikitable sortable" style="width:100%; margin:auto;"
|-
! Title !! Original<br />publication !! English<br />translation !! Translator
{{Book list
 | title            = ''Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno''
 | publish_date     = 1947
 | alt_title        = ''[[The Path to the Nest of Spiders]]'' <br /> ''The Path to the Spiders' Nests''
 | aux1             = 1957<br />1998
 | aux2             = Archibald Colquhoun<br /> [[Martin McLaughlin (academic)|Martin McLaughlin]]
 | line_color       = novel
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''Il visconte dimezzato''
 | publish_date     = 1952
 | alt_title        = ''[[The Cloven Viscount]]''
 | aux1             = 1962
 | aux2             = Archibald Colquhoun
 | line_color       = novel
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''La formica argentina''
 | publish_date     = 1952
 | alt_title        = ''The Argentine Ant''
 | aux1             = 1957
 | aux2             = Archibald Colquhoun
 | line_color       = shortstory
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''Fiabe italiane''
 | publish_date     = 1956
 | alt_title        = ''Italian Fables'' <br /> ''Italian Folk Tales'' <br /> ''[[Italian Folktales]]''
 | aux1             = 1961<br /> 1975<br /> 1980
 | aux2             = Louis Brigante<br /> Sylvia Mulcahy<br /> George Martin
 | line_color       = novel
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''Il barone rampante''
 | publish_date     = 1957
 | alt_title        = ''[[The Baron in the Trees]]''
 | aux1             = 1959
 | aux2             = Archibald Colquhoun
 | line_color       = novel
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''La speculazione edilizia''
 | publish_date     = 1957
 | alt_title        = ''A Plunge into Real Estate''
 | aux1             = 1984
 | aux2             = D. S. Carne-Ross
 | line_color       = shortstory
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''Il cavaliere inesistente''
 | publish_date     = 1959
 | alt_title        = ''[[The Nonexistent Knight]]''
 | aux1             = 1962
 | aux2             = Archibald Colquhoun
 | line_color       = novel
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''La giornata d'uno scrutatore''
 | publish_date     = 1963
 | alt_title        = ''The Watcher''
 | aux1             = 1971
 | aux2             = [[William Weaver]]
 | line_color       = shortstory
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''Marcovaldo ovvero le stagioni in città''
 | publish_date     = 1963
 | alt_title        = ''[[Marcovaldo|Marcovaldo or the Seasons in the City]]''
 | aux1             = 1983
 | aux2             = William Weaver
 | line_color       = novel
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''La nuvola di smog''
 | publish_date     = 1965
 | alt_title        = ''Smog''
 | aux1             =  1971
 | aux2             = William Weaver
 | line_color       = shortstory
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''Le cosmicomiche''
 | publish_date     = 1965
 | alt_title        = ''[[Cosmicomics]]''
 | aux1             = 1968
 | aux2             = William Weaver
 | line_color       = novel
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''Ti con zero''
 | publish_date     = 1967
 | alt_title        = ''[[t zero]]'' (also published as ''Time and the Hunter'')
 | aux1             = 1969
 | aux2             = William Weaver
 | line_color       = novel
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''Il castello dei destini incrociati''
 | publish_date     = 1969
 | alt_title        = ''[[The Castle of Crossed Destinies]]''
 | aux1             = 1977
 | aux2             = William Weaver
 | line_color       = novel
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''Gli amori difficili''
 | publish_date     = 1970
 | alt_title        = ''[[Difficult Loves]]'' (also the title of 2 different collections)
 | aux1             = 1984
 | aux2             = William Weaver
 | line_color       = novel
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''Le città invisibili''
 | publish_date     = 1972
 | alt_title        = ''[[Invisible Cities]]''
 | aux1             = 1974
 | aux2             = William Weaver
 | line_color       = novel
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore''
 | publish_date     = 1979
 | alt_title        = ''[[If on a winter's night a traveler]]''
 | aux1             = 1981
 | aux2             = William Weaver
 | line_color       = novel
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''Palomar''
 | publish_date     = 1983
 | alt_title        = ''[[Mr. Palomar]]''
 | aux1             = 1985
 | aux2             = William Weaver
 | line_color       = novel
}}
|}

===Fiction collections===
{| class="wikitable" style="width:100%; margin:auto;"
|-
! Title !! Original<br />publication !! English<br />translation !! Translator
{{Book list
 | title            = ''Ultimo viene il corvo''
 | publish_date     = 1949
 | alt_title        = ''[[The Crow Comes Last]]''
 | aux1             = –
 | aux2             = –
 | short_summary    = 30 short stories (some of these stories appear in ''Adam, One Afternoon'', and other collections).
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = –
 | publish_date     = –
 | alt_title        = ''Adam, One Afternoon and Other Stories''
 | aux1             = 1957
 | aux2             = Archibald Colquhoun, Peggy Wright
 | short_summary    = 21 short stories: Adam, One Afternoon; The Enchanted Garden; Father to Son; A Goatherd at Luncheon; Leaving Again Shortly; The House of the Beehives; Fear on the Footpath; Hunger at Bévera; Going to Headquarters; The Crow Comes Last; One of the Three is Still Alive; Animal Wood; Theft in a Cake Shop; Dollars and the Demi-Mondaine; Sleeping Like Dogs; Desire in November; A Judgment; The Cat and the Policeman; Who Put the Mine in the Sea?; The Argentine Ant.
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''I nostri antenati''
 | publish_date     = 1960
 | alt_title        = ''[[Our Ancestors]]''
 | aux1             = 1962
 | aux2             = Archibald Colquhoun
 | short_summary    = 3 novels: ''The Cloven Viscount''; ''The Baron in the Trees''; ''The Nonexistent Knight''.
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = –
 | publish_date     = –
 | alt_title        = ''The Watcher and Other Stories''
 | aux1             = 1971
 | aux2             = Archibald Colquhoun, William Weaver
 | short_summary    = 1 novella, 2 short stories: The Watcher; The Argentine Ant; Smog.
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = –
 | publish_date     = –
 | alt_title        = ''Difficult Loves''
 | aux1             = 1983
 | aux2             = William Weaver, D. S. Carne-Ross
 | short_summary    = 3 novellas: ''Difficult Loves''; ''Smog''; ''A Plunge into Real Estate''.
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = –
 | publish_date     = –
 | alt_title        = ''Difficult Loves''
 | aux1             = 1984
 | aux2             = William Weaver, Archibald Colquhoun, Peggy Wright
 | short_summary    = The novella, ''Difficult Loves'', and 20 short stories: Adam, One Afternoon; The Enchanted Garden; A Goatherd at Luncheon; The House of the Beehives; Big Fish, Little Fish; A Ship Loaded with Crabs; Man in the Wasteland; Lazy Sons; Fear on the Footpath; Hunger at Bévera; Going to Headquarters; The Crow Comes Last; One of the Three Is Still Alive; Animal Woods; Mine Field; Theft in a Pastry Shop; Dollars and the Demimondaine; Sleeping like Dogs; Desire in November; Transit Bed.
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''Sotto il sole giaguaro''
 | publish_date     = 1986
 | alt_title        = ''[[Under the Jaguar Sun]]''
 | aux1             = 1988
 | aux2             = William Weaver
 | short_summary    = 3 short stories: Under the Jaguar Sun; A King Listens; The Name, The Nose.
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''Prima che tu dica 'Pronto'''
 | publish_date     = 1993
 | alt_title        = ''Numbers in the Dark and Other Stories''
 | aux1             = 1996
 | aux2             = [[Tim Parks]]
 | short_summary    = 37 short stories: The Man Who Shouted Teresa; The Flash; Making Do; Dry River; Conscience; Solidarity; The Black Sheep; Good for Nothing; Like a Flight of Ducks; Love Far from Home; Wind in a City; The Lost Regiment; Enemy Eyes; A General in the Library; The Workshop Hen; Numbers in the Dark; The Queen's Necklace; Becalmed in the Antilles; The Tribe with Its Eyes on the Sky; Nocturnal Soliloquy of a Scottish Nobleman; A Beautiful March Day; World Memory; Beheading the Heads; [[The Burning of the Abominable House]]; The Petrol Pump; Neanderthal Man; Montezuma; Before You Say 'Hello'; Glaciation; The Call of the Water; The Mirror, the Target; The Other Eurydice; The Memoirs of Casanova; Henry Ford; The Last Channel; Implosion; Nothing and Not Much.
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''Tutte le cosmicomiche''
 | publish_date     = 1997
 | alt_title        = ''[[The Complete Cosmicomics]]''
 | aux1             = 2009
 | aux2             = Martin McLaughlin, Tim Parks, William Weaver
 | short_summary    = The collections ''Cosmicomics'' and ''t zero'', 4 stories from ''Numbers in the Dark and Other Stories'', and 7 stories newly translated by Martin McLaughlin.
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''L'entrata in guerra''
 | publish_date     = 1954
 | alt_title        = ''[[Into the War]]''
 | aux1             = 2011
 | aux2             = Martin McLaughlin
 | short_summary    = Trio of stories:'Into the War', 'The Avanguardisti in Menton', 'UNPA Nights'. Into the War is Calvino at his autobiographical best, combining brilliantly recollected memory with compelling wit and perfect prose.
 }}
|}

===Essays and other writings===
{| class="wikitable" style="width:100%; margin:auto;"
|-
! Title !! Original<br />publication !! English<br />translation !! Translator
{{Book list
 | title            = ''[[Orlando Furioso]] di [[Ludovico Ariosto]]''
 | publish_date     = 1970
 | alt_title        = –
 | aux1             = –
 | aux2             = –
 | short_summary    = An interpretation of the epic poem, and selections.
 | line_color       = nonfiction
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''Autobiografia di uno spettatore''
 | publish_date     = 1974
 | alt_title        = ''Autobiography of a Spectator''
 | aux1             = –
 | aux2             = –
 | line_color       = nonfiction
 | short_summary    = Preface to [[Fellini]]'s ''Quattro film'' (''Four Films'').
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = Introduction to ''Faits divers de la terre et du ciel'' by [[Silvina Ocampo]]
 | publish_date     = 1974
 | alt_title        = –
 | aux1             = –
 | aux2             = –
 | line_color       = nonfiction
 | short_summary    = With a preface by [[Jorge Luis Borges]].
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = Una pietra sopra: Discorsi di letteratura e società
 | publish_date     = 1980
 | alt_title        = ''The Uses of Literature'' (also published as ''The Literature Machine'')
 | aux1             = 1986
 | aux2             = [[Patrick Creagh]]
 | line_color       = nonfiction
 | short_summary    = Essays on literature.
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''Racconti fantastici dell'ottocento''
 | publish_date     = 1983
 | alt_title        = ''Fantastic Tales''
 | aux1             = 1997
 | aux2             = ?
 | short_summary    = Anthology of classic supernatural stories.
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''Science et métaphore chez Galilée''
 | publish_date     = 1983
 | alt_title        = ''Science and Metaphor in [[Galileo Galilei]]''
 | aux1             = –
 | aux2             = –
 | line_color       = nonfiction
 | short_summary    = Lectures given at the [[École des hautes études]] in Paris.
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''The Written and the Unwritten Word''<ref>[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1983/may/12/the-written-and-the-unwritten-word/ The Written and the Unwritten Word] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110708222825/http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1983/may/12/the-written-and-the-unwritten-word/ |date=8 July 2011 }} by Italo Calvino, translated by William Weaver. 12 May 1983</ref>
 | publish_date     = 1983
 | alt_title        =
 | aux1             = 1983
 | aux2             = William Weaver
 | line_color       = nonfiction
 | short_summary    = Lecture at the [[New York Institute for the Humanities]] on 30 March 1983
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''Collezione di sabbia''
 | publish_date     = 1984
 | alt_title        = ''Collection of Sand''
 | aux1             = 2013
 | aux2             = Martin McLaughlin
 | line_color       = nonfiction
 | short_summary    = Journalistic essays from 1974 to 1984
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''Lezioni americane: Sei proposte per il prossimo millennio''
 | publish_date     = 1988
 | alt_title        = ''[[Six Memos for the Next Millennium]]''
 | aux1             = 1993
 | aux2             = [[Patrick Creagh]]
 | line_color       = nonfiction
 | short_summary    = Originally prepared for the [[Charles Eliot Norton Lectures]]. On the values of literature.
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''Sulla fiaba''
 | publish_date     = 1988
 | alt_title        = –
 | aux1             = –
 | aux2             = –
 | line_color       = nonfiction
 | short_summary    = Essays on fables.
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''I libri degli altri. Lettere 1947–1981''
 | publish_date     = 1991
 | alt_title        = –
 | aux1             = –
 | aux2             = –
 | line_color       = nonfiction
 | short_summary    = Letters that Calvino wrote to other authors, whilst he worked at Einaudi.
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''Perché leggere i classici''
 | publish_date     = 1991
 | alt_title        = ''Why Read the Classics?''
 | aux1             = 1993
 | aux2             = Martin McLaughlin
 | line_color       = nonfiction
 | short_summary    = Essays on classic literature.
}}
|}

===Autobiographical works===
{| class="wikitable" style="width:100%; margin:auto;"
|-
! Title !! Original<br />publication !! English<br />translation !! Translator
{{Book list
 | title            = ''La strada di San Giovanni''
 | publish_date     = 1990
 | alt_title        = ''[[The Road to San Giovanni]]''
 | aux1             = 1993
 | aux2             = Tim Parks
 | line_color       = nonfiction
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''Eremita a Parigi. Pagine autobiografiche''
 | publish_date     = 1994
 | alt_title        = ''[[Hermit in Paris]]''
 | aux1             = 2003
 | aux2             = Martin McLaughlin
 | line_color       = nonfiction
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''Album Calvino''
 | publish_date     = 1995
 | alt_title        = 
 | aux1             = none
 | aux2             = none
 | line_color       = nonfiction
}}
|}

===[[Libretti]]===
{| class="wikitable" style="width:100%; margin:auto;"
|-
! Title !! Original<br />performance
{{Book list
 | title            = ''La panchina. Opera in un atto''
 | publish_date     = 1956
 | alt_title        = ''The Bench: One-Act Opera''
 | short_summary    = Libretto for the opera by [[Sergio Liberovici]].
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''La vera storia''
 | publish_date     = 1982
 | short_summary    = Libretto for the opera by [[Luciano Berio]].
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''[[Un re in ascolto]]''
 | publish_date     = 1984
 | alt_title        = ''A King Listens''
 | short_summary    = Libretto for the opera by Luciano Berio, based on Calvino's 1977 short story "A King Listens".<ref>Weiss, ''Understanding Italo Calvino'', 196</ref>
}}
|}

===Translations===
{| class="wikitable" style="width:100%; margin:auto;"
|-
! Original Title<br />Translated title !! Original Author !! Original<br />publication !! Translated<br />publication
{{Book list
 | title            = ''[[The Blue Flowers|Les fleurs bleues]]''
 | author=[[Raymond Queneau]]
 | publish_date     = 1965
 | alt_title        = ''I fiori blu''
 | aux1             = 1967
 | line_color       = novel
}}
{{Book list
 | title            = ''[[Le chant du Styrène]]''
 | author=Raymond Queneau
 | publish_date     = 1958
 | alt_title        = ''La canzone del polistirene''
 | aux1             = 1985
 | line_color       = screenplay
}}
|}

==Selected filmography==
* ''[[Boccaccio '70]]'', 1962 (co-wrote screenplay of "Renzo e Luciano" segment directed by [[Mario Monicelli]])
* ''L'Amore difficile'', 1963 (wrote "L'avventura di un soldato" segment directed by [[Nino Manfredi]])
* ''Tiko and the Shark'', 1964 (co-wrote screenplay directed by [[Folco Quilici]])

== Film and television adaptations ==
* ''The Nonexistent Knight'' by [[Pino Zac]], 1969 (Italian animated film based on the novel)
* ''Amores dificiles'' by Ana Luisa Ligouri, 1983 (13' Mexican short)
* ''L'Aventure d'une baigneuse'' by Philippe Donzelot, 1991 (14' French short based on ''The Adventure of a Bather'' in ''Difficult Loves'' )
* ''[[Fantaghirò]]'' by [[Lamberto Bava]], 1991 (TV adaptation based on  ''Fanta-Ghirò the Beautiful'' in ''[[Italian Folktales]]'')
* ''[[Palookaville (film)|Palookaville]]'' by [[Alan Taylor (director)|Alan Taylor]], 1995 (American film based on ''Theft in a Cake Shop'', ''Desire in November'', and ''Transit Bed'')
*''Solidarity'' by Nancy Kiang, 2006 (10' American short)
* ''Conscience'' by Yu-Hsiu Camille Chen, 2009 (10' Australian short)
* ''[[La Luna (2011 film)|La Luna]]'' by Enrico Casarosa, 2011 (American short loosely based on ''"''The Distance of the Moon" from ''[[Cosmicomics]]'')<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.awn.com/articles/article/first-look-pixars-la-luna/page/1%2C1 |title=First Look at Pixar's la Luna &#124; AWN &#124; Animation World Network |access-date=3 October 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131005021147/http://www.awn.com/articles/article/first-look-pixars-la-luna/page/1%2C1 |archive-date=5 October 2013  }}</ref>

== Films on Calvino ==
* [[Damian Pettigrew]], [http://sites.google.com/site/danslapeaudecalvino/accueil {{lang{{!}}it{{!}}Lo specchio di Calvino}}, 2012] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230504232026/https://sites.google.com/site/danslapeaudecalvino/accueil |date=4 May 2023 }}. Co-produced by [[Arte France]], Italy's [[Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali]], and the [[National Film Board of Canada]], the feature-length [[docufiction]] stars [[Neri Marcorè]] as the Italian writer alongside distinguished literary critic [[Pietro Citati]]. The film also uses in-depth interviews conducted at Calvino's Rome residence a year before his death in 1985 and rare footage from [[RAI]], INA {{lang|fr|([[Institut national de l'audiovisuel]])}}, and [[BBC]] television archives.<ref>Cited in [http://sites.google.com/site/felliniimabornliar/news IRS-RSI News] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120111112324/http://sites.google.com/site/felliniimabornliar/news |date=11 January 2012 }}. Retrieved 29 April 23.</ref> The 52-minute French version titled, {{lang|fr|Dans la peau d'Italo Calvino}} ("Being Italo Calvino"), was broadcast by Arte France on 19 December 2012 and Sky Arte (Italy) on 14 October 2013.<ref>{{in lang|fr}} [http://sites.google.com/site/danslapeaudecalvino/home {{lang{{!}}fr{{!}}Dans la peau d'Italo Calvino}}] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131210222826/https://sites.google.com/site/danslapeaudecalvino/home |date=10 December 2013 }} with Neri Marcorè and [[Pietro Citati]] on [http://www.arte.tv/fr/dans-la-peau-d-italo-calvino/7118058,CmC=7118070.html ARTE France] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130201062529/http://www.arte.tv/fr/dans-la-peau-d-italo-calvino/7118058,CmC=7118070.html |date=1 February 2013 }}. Retrieved 12 February 2014.</ref>

==Legacy==
The {{lang|it|[[Scuola Italiana Italo Calvino]]}}, an Italian curriculum school in Moscow, Russia, is named after him. A crater on the planet Mercury, Calvino, and a main-belt asteroid, ''[[22370 Italocalvino]]'', are also named after him. ''Salt Hill Journal'' and [[University of Louisville]] award annually the Italo Calvino Prize "for a work of fiction written in the fabulist experimental style of Italo Calvino".<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.pw.org/writing_contests/calvino_prize | title=Calvino Prize | work=[[Poets & Writers]] | access-date=10 May 2019 | archive-date=9 May 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190509234821/https://www.pw.org/writing_contests/calvino_prize | url-status=live }}</ref> 

Kai Nieminen (b. 1953) wrote his flute concerto (2001) based on the story of [[Mr. Palomar]]. The text was written to the dedicatee, [[Patrick Gallois]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/1163641882|website=[[WorldCat]]|title=Palomar : (nel giardino fantastico) : concerto for flute and orchestra (2001)|publisher=Fennica Gehrman|orig-date=The flute concerto was written in 2001, the piano reduction was published in 2020|date=2020|author=Kai Nieminen (composer), Jani Kyllönen (piano reduction), Patrick Gallois (text writer and dedicatee)|access-date=4 November 2022|oclc=1163641882|archive-date=7 November 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221107101519/https://www.worldcat.org/title/1163641882|url-status=live}}</ref>

== Awards ==
* 1946 – [[l'Unità]] Prize (shared with Marcello Venturi) for the short story, ''Minefield'' ({{lang|it|Campo di mine}})
* 1947 – Riccione Prize for ''[[The Path to the Nest of Spiders]]''
* 1952 – Saint-Vincent Prize
* 1957 – [[Viareggio Prize]] for ''[[The Baron in the Trees]]''
* 1959 – [[Bagutta Prize]]
* 1960 – Salento Prize for ''[[Our Ancestors]]''
* 1963 – International Charles Veillon Prize for ''The Watcher''
* 1970 – Asti Prize
* 1974 - Prix Médicis étranger for ''Invisible Cities''
* 1972 – [[Feltrinelli Prize]] for ''[[Invisible Cities]]''
* 1976 – [[Austrian State Prize for European Literature]]
* 1982 – [[World Fantasy Award]] – Life Achievement

==Notes==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Sources==
{{refbegin}}
===Primary sources===
*Calvino, Italo. ''Adam, One Afternoon'' (trans. Archibald Colquhoun, Peggy Wright). London: Minerva, 1992.
*—. ''The Castle of Crossed Destinies'' (trans. [[William Weaver]]). London: Secker & Warburg, 1977
*—. ''Cosmicomics'' (trans. William Weaver). London: Picador, 1993.
*—. ''The Crow Comes Last'' (''Ultimo viene il corvo''). Turin: Einaudi, 1949.
*—. ''Difficult Loves. Smog. A Plunge into Real Estate'' (trans. William Weaver, Donald Selwyn Carne-Ross). London: Picador, 1985.
*—. ''Hermit in Paris'' (trans. Martin McLaughlin). London: Jonathan Cape, 2003.
*—. ''If on a winter's night a traveller'' (trans. William Weaver). London: Vintage, 1998. {{ISBN|0-919630-23-5}}
*—. ''Invisible Cities'' (trans. William Weaver). London: Secker & Warburg, 1974.
*—. ''Italian Fables'' (trans. Louis Brigante). New York: Collier, 1961. (50 tales)
*—. ''Italian Folk Tales'' (trans. Sylvia Mulcahy). London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1975. (24 tales)
*—. ''Italian Folktales'' (trans.  George Martin). Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1980. (complete 200 tales)
*—. ''Marcovaldo or the Seasons in the City'' (trans. William Weaver). London: Minerva, 1993.
*—. ''Mr. Palomar'' (trans. William Weaver). London: Vintage, 1999.
*—. ''Our Ancestors'' (trans. A. Colquhoun). London: Vintage, 1998.
*—. ''The Path to the Nest of Spiders'' (trans. Archibald Colquhoun). Boston: Beacon, 1957.
*—. ''The Path to the Spiders' Nests'' (trans. A. Colquhoun, revised by Martin McLaughlin). London: Jonathan Cape, 1993.
*—. ''t zero'' (trans. William Weaver).  New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1969.
*—. ''The Road to San Giovanni'' (trans. Tim Parks). New York: Vintage International, 1993.
*—. ''Six Memos for the Next Millennium'' (trans. Patrick Creagh). New York: Vintage International, 1993.
*—. ''The Watcher and Other Stories'' (trans. William Weaver). New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1971.

===Secondary sources===
* Barenghi, Mario, and Bruno Falcetto. ''Romanzi e racconti di Italo Calvino''. Milano: Mondadori, 1991.
* Bernardini Napoletano, Francesca. ''I segni nuovi di Italo Calvino''. Rome: Bulzoni, 1977.
* Bonura, Giuseppe. ''Invito alla lettura di Calvino''. Milan: U. Mursia, 1972.
* Calvino, Italo. ''Uno scrittore pomeridiano: Intervista sull'arte della narrativa'' a cura di [[William Weaver]] e [[Damian Pettigrew]] con un ricordo di [[Pietro Citati]]. Rome: minimum fax, 2003. {{ISBN|978-88-87765-86-1}}.
* Corti, Maria. 'Intervista: Italo Calvino' in ''Autografo 2'' (October 1985): 47–53.
* Di Carlo, Franco. ''Come leggere I nostri antenati''. Milan: U. Mursia, 1958. (1998 {{ISBN|978-88-425-2215-7}}).
* McLaughlin, Martin. ''Italo Calvino''. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998. {{ISBN|978-0-7486-0735-8}} (pb. {{ISBN|978-0-7486-0917-8}}).
* Weiss, Beno. ''Understanding Italo Calvino''. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1993. {{ISBN|978-0-87249-858-7}}.
* Anderson, Helen Victoria. ''Historical and detective fiction in Italy 1950-2006 : Calvino, [[Luigi Malerba|Malerba]] and [[Laura Mancinelli|Mancinelli]]''. Oxford University, 2010.

=== Online sources ===
* [http://des.emoy.edu/mfp/calvino/ Italo Calvino at Emory University]{{dead link|date=December 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} Online Resources and Links
* [http://www.italo-calvino.com Outside the Town of Malbork] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181016145955/http://www.italo-calvino.com/ |date=16 October 2018 }} A Site for Italo Calvino
* [http://fullmoonfever.wordpress.com/2007/10/18/the-words-that-failed-italo-calvino-on-che The Words that Failed] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110816210238/http://fullmoonfever.wordpress.com/2007/10/18/the-words-that-failed-italo-calvino-on-che/ |date=16 August 2011 }} Calvino on Che Guevara
*http://atlantecalvino.unige.ch/ {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190825191748/http://atlantecalvino.unige.ch/ |date=25 August 2019 }} vizualisation of Calvino's work by
{{refend}}

==Further reading==
'''General'''
*Benussi, Cristina (1989). ''Introduzione a Calvino''. Rome: Laterza.
* Bartoloni, Paolo (2003). ''Interstitial Writing: Calvino, Caproni, Sereni and Svevo''. Leicester: Troubador.
* Bloom, Harold (ed.) (2002). ''Bloom's Major Short Story Writers: Italo Calvino''. Broomall, Pennsylvania: Chelsea House.
* Bolongaro, Eugenio (2003). '' Italo Calvino and the Compass of Literature''. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
* Cannon, JoAnn (1981). ''Italo Calvino: Writer and Critic''. Ravenna: Longo Press.
* Carter III, Albert Howard (1987). ''Italo Calvino: Metamorphoses of Fantasy.'' Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press.
* Chubb, Stephen (1997). ''I, Writer, I, Reader: the Concept of the Self in the Fiction of Italo Calvino''. Leicester: Troubador.
* Gabriele, Tomassina (1994). ''Italo Calvino: Eros and Language''. Teaneck, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
* Jeannet, Angela M. (2000) ''Under the Radiant Sun and the Crescent Moon''. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
* Markey, Constance (1999). ''Italo Calvino. A Journey Toward Postmodernism''. Gainesville: Florida University Press.
* —. Interview. "Italo Calvino: The Contemporary Fabulist" in ''Italian Quarterly'', 23 (spring 1982): 77–85.
* Pilz, Kerstin (2005). ''Mapping Complexity: Literature and Science in the Works of Italo Calvino''. Leicester: Troubador.

== External links ==
{{wikiquote}}
{{Commonscat}}{{Library resources box|viaf=8520}}
* [http://des.emory.edu/mfp/calvino/ Italo Calvino at Emory University] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051130011154/http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/calvino/ |date=30 November 2005 }} On-Line Resources and Links
* {{cite journal| url=http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2027/the-art-of-fiction-no-130-italo-calvino| title=Italo Calvino, The Art of Fiction No. 130| journal=Paris Review| date=Fall 1992| author=[[Damian Pettigrew]], [[William Weaver]]| volume=Fall 1992| issue=124| access-date=28 October 2010| archive-date=26 October 2010| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101026024724/http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2027/the-art-of-fiction-no-130-italo-calvino| url-status=live}}
* {{Perlentaucher|italo-calvino}}
* {{IMDb name|id=0130902|name=Italo Calvino}}

'''Excerpts, essays, artwork'''
* [https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/282571-distance-of-moon The Distance of the Moon] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220109034118/https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/282571-distance-of-moon |date=9 January 2022 }} read by [[Liev Schreiber]] in 2013
* [http://www.italo-calvino.com/ifon.htm If on a winter's night a traveler] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061106223651/http://www.italo-calvino.com/ifon.htm |date=6 November 2006 }} First chapter excerpts
* {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050906113658/http://www.bo.iasf.cnr.it/~malaguti/calvino/cosmicomics/bet.html |date=6 September 2005 |title=How Much Shall We Bet? }} Chapter 8 of ''[[Cosmicomics]]''
* [http://alangarner.atspace.org/calvino.html Calvino on Myth] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110811071522/http://alangarner.atspace.org/calvino.html |date=11 August 2011 }}
* {{usurped|1=[https://archive.today/20081120183235/http://www.sodsbrood.com/proftodd/calvino/wordsfailed.htm Calvino on Che Guevara]}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20130112225642/http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/00/pwillen1/lit/index2.htm In Calvino veritas] Essays on Calvino

{{Italo Calvino}}
{{Navboxes
|title=Awards received by Italo Calvino
|list1=
{{Viareggio Prize}}
{{Bagutta Prize}}
{{Austrian State Prize for European Literature}}
{{World Fantasy Award Life Achievement}}
{{Mondello Prize}}
}}

{{Venice Film Festival jury presidents}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Calvino, Italo}}
[[Category:Italo Calvino]]
[[Category:1923 births]]
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[[Category:20th-century Italian novelists]]
[[Category:20th-century Italian short story writers]]
[[Category:20th-century Italian male writers]]
[[Category:Collectors of fairy tales]]
[[Category:Cuban emigrants to Italy]]
[[Category:Italian atheists]]
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[[Category:Italian folklorists]]
[[Category:Italian magazine editors]]
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[[Category:Italian resistance movement members]]
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[[Category:Oulipo members]]
[[Category:Postmodern writers]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Legion of Honour]]
[[Category:The New Yorker people]]
[[Category:University of Florence alumni]]
[[Category:University of Paris people]]
[[Category:University of Turin alumni]]
[[Category:Viareggio Prize winners]]
[[Category:World Fantasy Award–winning writers]]
[[Category:Writers from Havana]]