'The pleasure of these stories is intense: the flexibility and range of Calvino's imagination bring to them a kind of organic perfection as though they had not been written by a man but rather grown of their own accord' Sunday Telegraph

Italo Calvino, one of Italy's finest postwar writers, has delighted readers around the world with his deceptively simple, fable-like stories. He 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. William Weaver is best known for his translations of Italo Calvino, Roberto Calasso and Umberto Eco. He won the 1971 John Florio Prize for The Heron by Giorgio Bassani, and in 1992 he won it again for The Dust Roads of Monferrato by Rosetta Loy.