Calvino, Italo (1923-1985)

Italian writer and journalist. His imaginative, lyrical fantasies and allegories have made him one of the great 20th-century Italian writers. His novels include Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno/The Path to the Nest of Spiders (1947), Il visconte dimezzato/The Cloven Viscount (1952), Il barone rampante/The Baron in the Trees (1957), Il cavaliere inesistente/The Nonexistent Knight (1959), Le cosmicomiche/Cosmicomics (1965), Le città invisibili/Invisible Cities (1972), Il castello dei destini incrociati/The Castle of Crossed Destinies (1973), and Se une notte d'inverno un viaggiatore/If on a Winter's Night a Traveller (1979). His essay collections include Una petra sopra: Discorsi di letteratura e società/The Uses of Literature (1980) and Why Read the Classics? (1999).