The first English translation of Italo Calvino’s letters has appeared this year (Princeton University Press).
Selected by Michael Wood and translated by Martin McLaughlin, the generous selection of around 650 letters offers many insights not just for those interested in Calvino the writer, but also for anyone interested in the most significant developments in Italian literature, culture and politics in the second half of the twentieth century.
The reader will find fascinating letters to major Italian writers such as Leonardo Sciascia, Umberto Eco and Primo Levi. But the letters also chart the rapid maturation of someone who became Italy’s foremost writer of fiction, an influential literary critic, and an omnivorous reader of both his native literature and of American, English and French literatures. Michael Wood and Martin McLaughlin will discuss the significance of this translation of Calvino’s correspondence.
