It's here! Browse the 2024 Penguin Christmas gift guide
Marcovaldo

Marcovaldo

Summary

Marcovaldo is an enchanting collection of twenty stories that are both melancholy and funny, farce and fantasy. Calvino charts the struggles of an Italian peasant to reconcile country habits with urban life, combining comical disasters with a surrealistic view of city life through the eyes of an outsider. As always with Calvino, nothing is quite as it seems.

'Delightful and rewarding as always' Observer

'The most magically ingenious of the contemporary Italian novelists' The Times

Reviews

  • Calvino is surely among the handful of living writers that can be called, without hesitation, great. Each book by Calvino is a completely original conception. Marcovaldo is one of the best works of fiction published
    Spectator

About the author

Italo Calvino

Italo Calvino (1923-1985), one of Italy's finest postwar writers, has delighted readers around the world with his deceptively simple, fable-like stories. Calvino was born in Cuba in 1923 and raised in San Remo, Italy; he fought for the Italian Resistance from 1943-45. His major works include Cosmicomics (1968), Invisible Cities (1972), and If on a winter's night a traveler (1979). He died in Siena in 1985.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more