If On A Winter's Night A Traveler (Paperback)
Staff Reviews
Chosen by: Arjun
A wonderfully convoluted book designed to blur the lines between fiction and reality. Calvino uses an unconventional structure, as well as a second person perspective, to explore important themes of change, chance, and deceit. This novel is an experimental classic with plenty of breaks in the fourth wall and you, the Reader, are the main character. If you are looking for a stupendous work of metafiction then this is most definitely the book for you.
— From September 2023 Staff PicksDescription
"You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel...Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade." —from If On A Winter's Night a Traveler
Italo Calvino's stunning classic imagines a novel capable of endless possibilities in an intricately crafted, spellbinding story about writing and reading.
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler is a feat of striking ingenuity and intelligence, exploring how our reading choices can shape and transform our lives. Originally published in 1979, Italo Calvino's singular novel crafted a postmodern narrative like never seen before—offering not one novel but ten, each with a different plot, style, ambience, and author, and each interrupted at a moment of suspense. Together, the stories form a labyrinth of literature known and unknown, alive and extinct, through which two readers pursue the story lines that intrigue them and try to read each other. Deeply profound and surprisingly romantic, this classic is a beautiful meditation on the transformative power of reading and the ways we make meaning in our lives.
"Calvino is a wizard...There is no halting [this book's] metamorphoses." —New York Times Review of Books
About the Author
ITALO CALVINO (1923–1985) attained worldwide renown as one of the twentieth century’s greatest storytellers. Born in Cuba, he was raised in San Remo, Italy, and later lived in Turin, Paris, Rome, and elsewhere. Among his many works are Invisible Cities, If on a winter’s night a traveler, The Baron in the Trees, and other novels, as well as numerous collections of fiction, folktales, criticism, and essays. His works have been translated into dozens of languages.