Italo calvino biography for kids
Home / General Biography Information / Italo calvino biography for kids
There, he was invited to join a group of experimental writers called Oulipo. The Watcher and other stories (stories)
Palomar - Palomar
Posthumous editions:
Quotes
Italo Calvino
- I set my hand to the art of writing early on.
Here he soon joined some important circles like the Oulipo (Ouvroir de littérature potentielle) and met Roland Barthes and Claude Lévi-Strauss, in the fermenting atmosphere that was going to evolve into the 1968's cultural revolution (the French May); in his French experience he also became fond of Raymond Queneau's works, which would have sensibly influenced his later production.
In 1950, he worked again for the Einaudi house, where he became responsible for the literary volumes. Italo's father had interesting ideas, having been a follower of Kropotkin (a type of anarchist) and later a Socialist.
Calvino's mother, Giuliana "Eva" Mameli, was also a plant scientist and a university professor.
He finished writing Mr. Palomar in 1983.
- When Calvino visited the United States in 1975, he was given an honorary membership to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. It sold over 5,000 copies, which was a lot for Italy at that time. His interests included classical studies (Honoré de Balzac, Ludovico Ariosto, Dante, Ignacio de Loyola, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Cyrano de Bergérac, Giacomo Leopardi) while at the same time, not without a certain surprise from the Italian intellectual circles, he wrote novels for Playboy's Italian edition (1973).
She was from Sassari, Italy. But it was a long time before I realized and convinced myself that this was anything but mere chance. He explained his reasons in a letter published in L'Unità. He visited Japan and Mexico and gave lectures in several American towns.
Born in Santiago de Las Vegas, Cuba, to botanists Mario Calvino and Evelina Mameli (a descendant of Goffredo Mameli) and brother of Floriano Calvino, a famous geologist, he soon moved to his family's homeland of Italy, where he lived most of his life.
In 1941 he moved to Turin, after a long hesitation over living in this town or Milan.
Some more publications followed including Cosmicomics (1968), Invisible Cities (1972), The Castle of Crossed Destinies (1973), and If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler (1979).
Final Years
- Calvino returned to Rome with his family in 1980 where they lived at their country house at Pineta Roccamare.
He wrote about this in his memoir, The Road to San Giovanni, saying they were both talkative but became silent around each other. The reports and correspondence he produced from this visit were later collected and earned him literary prizes. He also loved American movies, cartoons, drawing, poetry, and theater.
Growing Up During Difficult Times
Calvino remembered a scary event from his childhood: a professor who was attacked by Benito Mussolini's Blackshirts (a group supporting the Fascist party).
The Italo Calvino Prize is given every year for fiction written in a style similar to his unique and imaginative stories.
His stories have also been adapted into films and television shows, showing how his creative ideas continue to live on.
Authors Italo Calvino Helped Publish
Selected Film Projects
- Boccaccio '70, 1962 (he helped write a part of this movie)
- L'Amore difficile, 1963 (he wrote a part of this movie)
- Tiko and the Shark, 1964 (he helped write the movie script)
Movies and TV Shows Based on His Works
- The Nonexistent Knight by Pino Zac, 1969 (an Italian animated film based on his novel)
- Amores dificiles by Ana Luisa Ligouri, 1983 (a short Mexican film)
- L'Aventure d'une baigneuse by Philippe Donzelot, 1991 (a short French film based on one of his stories)
- Fantaghirò by Lamberto Bava, 1991 (a TV show based on a folktale from his Italian Folktales collection)
- Palookaville by Alan Taylor, 1995 (an American film based on several of his short stories)
- Solidarity by Nancy Kiang, 2006 (a short American film)
- Conscience by Yu-Hsiu Camille Chen, 2009 (a short Australian film)
- "La Luna" by Enrico Casarosa, 2011 (a short American film)
Films About Italo Calvino
- Damian Pettigrew, Lo specchio di Calvino (Inside Italo, 2012).
However, Calvino found it hard to write his next novel.
- When Calvino visited the United States in 1975, he was given an honorary membership to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. It sold over 5,000 copies, which was a lot for Italy at that time. His interests included classical studies (Honoré de Balzac, Ludovico Ariosto, Dante, Ignacio de Loyola, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Cyrano de Bergérac, Giacomo Leopardi) while at the same time, not without a certain surprise from the Italian intellectual circles, he wrote novels for Playboy's Italian edition (1973).
External links
de:Italo Calvinoes:Italo Calvinofr:Italo Calvinoit:Italo Calvinoja:イタロ・カルヴィーノmk:Итало Калвиноfi:Italo Calvinopl:Italo Calvinozh:伊塔罗·卡尔维诺
Italo Calvino Facts & Worksheets
Timeline
He stayed in San Remo, on the Italian Riviera, for some 20 years, and enrolled in the Avanguardisti (a fascist youth organisation to which membership was practically compulsory) with whom he took part in the occupation of the French Riviera.
In 1981 he was awarded the prestigious French Légion d'Honneur. The following year, presumably in order to verify a possibility of advancement in the communist party, he visited the Soviet Union.