ITALO CALVINO: BIOGRAPHY, LITERARY STYLE, WORKS, PHRASES - BIOGRAPHIES - 2025

Italo Calvino (1923-1985) was an Italian writer and editor. His contribution is widely recognized because he used his works as a means to intertwine the humanistic world with the scientific one. However, it should be mentioned that this author –although he grew up in Italy– was born in Cuba.

Throughout his life, he stood out for defending people's freedom. In an implicit way, he stated in his texts that man was locked in a social cage that determined him culturally and ideologically. He thought that imagination was the only transport that allowed us to escape from chaos and transform it.

Italo Calvino, Italian writer and editor. Source:]

In order to change reality, he moved away from the political sphere. Not because he stopped believing in socialism, but because he perceived that leaders sometimes used the discourses of equality and development according to their interests. For this reason, he decided to dedicate himself to the literary field, a space where he could unite individuals through words.

Thanks to his style and stories, Calvino was named as one of the most important writers of modernity. Besides, he received several awards that distinguished his talent and originality, among them the following stand out: Bagutta Prize (1959), Feltrinelli Prize (1972), Austrian Prize for European Literature (1976), Legion of Honor (1981) and World Fantasy Prize (1982).

Biography

Early years

Italo Giovanni Calvino Mameli was born on October 15, 1923 in Santiago de las Vegas, a city located in Cuba. He was the first child of Mario Calvino and Evelina Mameli. His family environment was fundamental for the development of his character and beliefs, since he grew up in an environment of scientific tradition.

His father was an agronomist and professor of botany, a profession that led him to travel constantly. He held a position in the Ministry of Agriculture of Mexico and later moved to Cuba, where he served as head of the agricultural station and director of the experimental school. Instead his mother was a university professor.

For this reason, Calvino grew up with the idea of ​​entering the academic world to learn the techniques of agricultural exploitation.

Another essential aspect was that his parents did not teach him any religious dogma: they expressed that people were free to decide what to believe. This perception was in opposition to Italian customs and the doctrine established by fascism.

Academic and work life

When Italo was two years old, the family returned to Italy and settled in San Remo. In that locality he studied at the St. George College Children's Institute; but he finished primary school at the Scuole Valdesi. He instantly joined the Ginnasio Liceo Cassini Academy. In 1941 he enrolled at the University of Turin. His goal was to prepare to be an agronomist.

However, the devastation caused by World War II caused him to withdraw from college for some time. In addition, in 1943 he was requested by the Italian Social Republic in order to participate in military service, although he deserted a few days later to join the resistance group. For this reason his parents were kidnapped by German troops.

After the war ended, he left for Turin, a city where he began working for various newspapers and decided to resume his studies. However, he did not enroll in the Engineering department, but in the Letters department, where he obtained a bachelor's degree after defending his thesis on Joseph Conrad.

It is worth noting that at this stage he joined the Communist Party, a group from which he resigned in the mid-1950s due to its extremist approaches. He also met Cesare Pavese, who helped him join the Einaudi publishing house.

Trajectory

In Einaudi he assumed the office of editor. His job was to review the texts to be published. For Calvino, working in that editorial was essential because he shared with numerous historians and philosophers who changed his vision of the world. Likewise, he forged a close friendship with Elio Vittorini.

Vittorini was a novelist with whom he later joined to co-direct the literary critic magazine Il Menabo. In 1947 he wrote his first novel entitled El camino de los nests de rank. In 1949 he published some short stories, whose book was called Finally, the Raven. From that moment he began his journey through the literary field.

In 1964, he made a trip to Cuba in order to visit the house where he lived with his parents. He also met with Ernesto (Che) Guevara. On February 19, he married in Havana with the Argentine translator Esther Singer. The couple settled in Rome.

Last years

In 1965 his daughter Giovanna Calvino Singer was born. In 1967, the family moved to Paris, a city in which Italo devoted himself to research; but in 1980 they returned to Rome. At that time he received an invitation from Harvard University to give several lectures.

For this reason, he was preparing the topics that he would discuss in these meetings when he suffered a cerebrovascular attack. Italo Calvino died on September 19, 1985 in Castiglione della Pescaia, the town where he spent his last days of vacation.

Literary style

Italo Calvino's literary style was characterized by being varied. At first, his texts were written in the first person and were intended to criticize reality, as they sought to portray the injustice of society and politicians after the war. That is why they followed the linear order. That is, they complied with the beginning and end cycle.

However, he did not obtain successful results. For that reason he began to write his works in an impersonal way. He moved away from individual emotionality and created an objective narrator, who perceived and related all the events, but did not participate in the plot. It also simplified the narrative, since it gave a new structure to certain writings.

Now they had a short format: each story was two pages long at most; although with the passage of time he was moving away from neorealism and ventured into the fantasy genre. This was fundamental because his books showed another organization, where the allegorical and oneiric content was placed in italics.

The purpose was to inform the public that the fidelity of the facts had been altered. It also included the time of memory, that is why the past, present and future were united and confused in the same space. It can be said that certain stories sought for the reader to decipher or complete the veracity of the events exposed.

Source: Simoaxl

Plays

Narrative

Calvin's narrative has a didactic character. It tries to explain how modern man develops in a complex and enigmatic world. It details the individual's relationship with the city and politics. It shows that life is a constant journey, be it physical or psychological. It also expresses that language has various manifestations.

For this reason, in his texts there are almost no dialogues. In the place of the colloquia he placed symbolic elements, such as the tarot cards. Among his works stand out:

- The rampant baron (1957).

- The castle of crossed destinies (1969).

- The invisible cities (1972).

- If a winter night a traveler (1979).

Stories

Calvino's stories portray the feeling of emptiness that people experience daily. He states that in recent decades loneliness has been the company of being. This aspect caused the man to be narcissistic, which is why he focused on his internal conflicts and not on the inconveniences that destroyed society.

Fear, individuality and pain are the most frequent themes. Some of his stories will be mentioned in the following lines:

- The Argentine ant (1952).

- The path of San Giovanni (1962).

- The cosmicomics (1965).

- Zero time (1967).

essays

Over the course of his career, Calvino published various essays on literary and social criticism. The writings that stood out the most will be presented below:

- The worker antithesis (1964).

- Fable (1980).

- Full stop: essays on literature and society (1980).

- Fantastic Literature (1985).

- Six proposals for a new millennium (1985).

Phrases

Calvin's speeches have modified the perception of reality. That is why his words continue to be a legacy for humanity. The most used phrases are:

- "Find and know who and what, in the middle of hell, it is not hell, and make it last, and make room for it."

- "Melancholy is sadness that has acquired lightness."

- "Revolutionaries are the most formalistic of conservatives."

- "A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say."

- "All history is nothing other than an infinite catastrophe from which we try to get out as best as possible."

- "The hell of the living is not something to come: there is one, the one that already exists here."

- "The traveler recognizes how little is his by discovering how much he has not had and will not have."

- "Unrealized futures are just branches of the past."

- "The strangeness of what you are not or do not possess anymore, awaits you in passing, in strange and not possessed places."

- "The images in memory, once fixed by words, are erased".

References

1. Castillo, M. (2008). The irrational reality for Calvino. Retrieved on December 14, 2019 from the Faculty of Letters: uclm.es
2. García, M. (2010). Between fantasy and reality, who was Italo Calvino? Retrieved on December 14, 2019 from Literature Magazine: revistaquimera.com
3. Johnson, T. (2014). Science and art character. Calvino, between literature and the social struggle. Retrieved on December 14, 2019 from Faculty of Philosophy and Literature: philosophiayletras.ugr.es
4. Torán, J. (2015). Italo Calvino, writer and intellectual. Retrieved on December 14, 2019 from Culture: eldiario.es
5. Reed, S. (2017). Italo Calvino: Man from two continents. Retrieved on December 14, 2019 from the Department of History: history.princeton.edu
6. Rojas, Y. (2008). In the mirror of Italo Calvino. Retrieved on December 14, 2019 from Visor Literary Magazine: visorliteraria.com
7. Vegas, M. (2008). On the narrative of Italo Calvino. Retrieved on December 14, 2019 from Academia: academia.edu