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  • Published: 11 January 2012
  • ISBN: 9780141193731
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 128
  • RRP: $29.99

Into The War




Calvino's autobiographical trilogy, newly translated by Martin McLaughlin

Set in Italy in the summer of 1940, this trio of stories explores the relationships between the different generations caught up in the war as well as Calvino's own experiences as a teenager. In the title story, 'Into the War', we are given an insight into what life was really like for those too young to be conscripted into Mussolini's army, while in 'The Avanguardisti in Menton', Calvino and his friends take a revealingly anti-climactic trip to the garrisoned French town of Menton, the sole Italian conquest of the early months of the conflict. The final story, 'UNPA Nights', is a touching, comic tale of friendship in a blackout, where the narrator's imagination wanders as he roams through the seedier parts of the darkened town instead of guarding the school buildings.

Into the War is Calvino at his autobiographical best, combining brilliantly recollected memory with compelling wit and perfect prose.

  • Published: 11 January 2012
  • ISBN: 9780141193731
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 128
  • RRP: $29.99

About the author

Italo Calvino

Italo Calvino was born in Cuba in 1923 and grew up in Italy. He was an essayist and journalist and a member of the editorial staff of Einaudi in Turin. One of the most respected writers of the twentieth century, his best-known works of fiction include Invisible Cities, If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, Marcovaldo and Mr Palomar. In 1973 he won the prestigious Premio Feltrinelli. He died in 1985. A collection of Calvino's posthumous personal writings, The Hermit in Paris, was published in 2003.

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Praise for Into The War

The greatest Italian writer of the twentieth century

Guardian