Hermit in Paris: Autobiographical WritingsFrom one of modern literature’s most captivating and elusive masters comes a posthumous volume of thoughtful, elegant, and quick-witted autobiographical writings, all previously unpublished in English. Here is Italo Calvino paying homage to his literary influences and tracing the evolution of his signature style. Here are his reminiscences of Italy’s antifascist resistance and the frenzy of politics and ideas of the postwar era. The longest and most delightfully revealing section of the book is Calvino’s diary of his travels in the United States in 1959 and 1960, which show him marveling at color TV, wrinkling his nose at the Beats, and reeling at the outpouring of racial hatred attending a civil rights demonstration in Alabama. Overflowing with insight and amusement, Hermit in Paris is an invaluable addition to the Calvino legacy. |
Contents
| 3 | |
| 16 | |
The Cloven Communist | 121 |
A Letter in Two Versions | 157 |
Was on 25th April 1945 | 176 |
a Stalinist Too? | 192 |
The Duces Portraits | 207 |
Behind the Success | 221 |
Would Like to Be Mercutio | 234 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
already American anti-Fascism anti-Fascist arrive beatniks beautiful become believe bookshop Celeste Negarville certainly Cesare Pavese church cinema Cloven Viscount colour Communist party continue critic cultural dialect Duce editor Einaudi publishing house Elio Vittorini enormous Eugenio Scalfari everything experience fact famous Fascist father feel films friends genuine girls Giulio Einaudi happened huge Hugo Claus ideas intellectuals Italian Italian Folktales Italian literature Italo Calvino Italy kind l'Unità later Liberation Ligurian literary literature live look managed memory Milan months Mussolini natural never novel novelist Olivetti Paris partisan Pavese perhaps person poet political portraits problem provincial reality Rome San Remo seemed sense SFrancisco short stories social Stalin stay streets theatre things thought tourist town Turin Village Vittorini write written York young