Calvino left Cuba for Italy when he was a child. During World War II, he joined the Italian resistance movement, settled in Turin after the war, and obtained a bachelor's degree in literature. At the same time, he worked for * * * to produce the party's weekly L'Unità and Einaudi Publishing House. From 1959 to 1966, he and Elio Vittorini edited the left-wing magazine Hilmer Nab Di Letlala.
Calvino's earliest works are all related to his experience in participating in resistance organizations: the neo-realistic novel Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno (published in 1947) examines the resistance movement through a minor's helpless experience in the face of adults and a series of events around him; And a collection of short stories named Ulimo Vienel corvo (Adam, Afternoon and Other Stories, published in 1949).
In 1950s, Calvino resolutely turned to the creation of fantasy and fable works, three of which won him an international reputation. The first film, Il visconte dimezzato (published in 1952), is a fable about a man who was split in half by gunfire-half doing good and half doing evil-and reunited with a peasant woman through love. The second book, Il barone rampante, has the highest reputation (Baron in the Tree, published in 1957). This is the legendary story of an aristocrat in19th century. One day, he decided to climb the tree and never touch the ground with his feet again. But he did fully share the life of his compatriots on the ground in the tree. This story skillfully explores the connection and opposition between reality and imagination. The third book, Il cavaliere inesistente (the nonexistent knight, published by 1959), is an imitation of medieval knight novels.
Calvino's later fantasy works are as follows: cosmicomiche (Cosmicomiche in 1965) narrates the creation and evolution of the universe in the stream of consciousness; Later, Le città invisibili ("Invisible City", published in 1972), Il castello dei destini incrociati ("Castle with Staggered Fates", Published in 1973) and Seuna Notte d 'inverno un Viaggia Tore ("If it is a winter night, a traveler", published in 1979), Calvino uses the innovative structure of the game and the changeable perspective to examine the essence of opportunity, coincidence and change. Una Pietra sopra: Discorsi di letterura e society à (the role of literature, published in 1980) is a collection of articles he wrote for the magazine Ilmenabê.
There are also five "memory exercises" written in 1962-1977 and published in 1990.
Alberto Moravia (1907— 1990) is the most famous novelist in contemporary Italy. During his 60-year creative career, he has published dozens of novels and collections of short stories. He touched people's hearts with realistic brushstrokes and ordinary stories that happened around him. His works have exerted great influence on Italian literature and even world literature.
His five most outstanding works: Cold Man, Women in Ciochia, Despise, Attention and Involuntary.
Among them, the protagonist of the first-person novel The Woman of Chocharia is a woman named Cesla. She was born in the rural area of Chochalia and married a small grocery store owner in Rome. After her husband died, she and her daughter Rosetta lived alone. The war made Rome short of food, which provided her with a good opportunity to speculate on food. For her, it doesn't matter who wins or loses on both sides of the war, as long as she can continue to do this speculative business and earn enough money to prepare a decent dowry for her daughter.
The Italians in the novel are selfish and indifferent. They only care about their own stable life and are indifferent to national politics. They didn't like Mussolini and didn't want to fight, but they let the fascist forces steal the state power, Mussolini started the war, and they all participated in the war of aggression to some extent. Rosetta's fiance is in Yugoslavia at this time, and Concetta's son is a refugee in the mountains and has been to Albania. The deserters didn't want to resist the unjust war, but refused to die in a foreign land, so Concetta's son and refugees talked with relish about their crimes in Albania. People hope that the war will end soon and that the allies will liberate them, but they don't want to do anything practical to accelerate their liberation. They cheered for the British bombers, but when they saw the British planes dropping bombs in the town of Fondi and thought of their houses there, they called the British robbers and murderers and cheered for the Germans who opened fire on the British planes. In those days, Italian planes bombed enemy cities and people's houses there, and they were happy about it.
Today, we are still moved by Moravia's novels written nearly half a century ago, and by Michelle's views on politics and war. We feel sorry for his death, and even more sorry for his moral conscience destroyed by his body. We can still feel the immortal value of this novel.
Besides,
De Amicus's Education of Love
Decameron of Boccaccio