Italo Calvino

Italo Calvino was one of the most influential 20th century Italian writers. A journalist, short-story writer and novelist he joined, during World War II, the Italian Resistance in Turin and obtained his degree in literature while working for the Communist periodical L’Unite.

From 1959 to 1966 he edited the left-wing magazine Il Menabò di letteratura. During the 1950s Calvino’s writing developed from a neo-realist style to fantasy and allegory and particularly in his later works Calvino makes use of playfully innovative structures and shifting viewpoints in order to examine the nature of chance, coincidence, and change.