Numbers in the Dark and Other Stories [antikvár]

Italo Calvino began writing in his teens: short stories, fables, poetry and plays. The theatre was his first vocation and perhaps the one that he spent most time on. There are many surviving works from this period which have never been published. Caivino's extraordinary capacity for self-criticism and self-referential analysis soon led him to give up the theatre. In a letter to his ftiend Eugenio Scalfari written in 1945 he announces laconically, 'I've switched to stories.' Written in capitals and covering a whole page the news must have been important indeed. From then on there was never a penod when Calvino was not writing. He wrote every day, wherever he was and in whatever circumstances, at a table or on his knee, in planes or hotel rooms. It is not surprising therefore that he should have left such a huge amount of work, including innumerable stories and fables. In addition to those he brought together in various collections, there are many which only appeared in newspapers and magazines, while others remained unpublished. The texts collected in this volume - unpublished and otherwise - are just some of those written between 1943 - when the author was still in his teens - and 1984. Some pieces were initially planned as novels but later became stories, a process that was not unusual with Calvino, who reworked a number of sections from an unpublished novel. The White Schooner, for his Collected Stories of 1958. 1