Six Memos for the Next Millennium, Italo Calvino
Six Memos for the Next Millennium, Italo Calvino
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Six Memos for the Next Millennium

Author: Italo Calvino

Narrator: Edoardo Ballerini

Unabridged: 3 hr 34 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 08/25/2017

Categories: Fiction, Classic


Synopsis

Italo Calvino's brilliant reflection on what makes great literature, from the classics to more contemporary works, punctuated with personal details about Calvino's own writing processes.

At the time of his death, Italo Calvino was at work on six lectures setting forth the qualities in writing he most valued, and which he believed would define literature in the century to come. Here, in Six Memos for the Next Millennium, are the five lectures he completed, forming not only a stirring defense of literature, but also an indispensable guide to the writings of Calvino himself.

Calvino devotes one “memo” each to the concepts of lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, and multiplicity, drawing examples from his vast knowledge of myth, folklore, and works both ancient and modern. Readers will be astonished by the prescience of these lectures, which have only gained in relevance as Calvino’s “next millennium” has dawned.

About Italo Calvino

Italo Calvino (1923-1985) was an Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels. His best known works include the Our Ancestors trilogy, the short story collection Cosmicomics, and the novels Invisible Cities and If on a Winter's Night a Traveler. He received numerous awards for his work, including the Riccione Prize and the Saint-Vincent Prize. Lionized in Britain and the United States, he was the most-translated contemporary Italian writer at the time of his death, and a noted contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Valeriu

Italo Calvino a fost invitat în 1985 să țină 6 conferințe în cadrul Norton Lectures (Harvard University). A apucat să redacteze doar 5. A murit subit, în 19 octombrie 1985, înainte de a le prezenta studenților. Străbătînd conferințele (completate cu o a șasea despre „incipit” - paragraful de deschid......more

Goodreads review by Riku

This is a series of lectures and in each of them Calvino takes it upon himself to recommend to the next millennium a particular literary value which he holds dear, and has tried to embody in his work. That way this book becomes not only a manifesto on how to write but also a guide to interpreting Ca......more

Goodreads review by Simona

(English review at the bottom) Per spiegarvi perché bisognerebbe leggere questo saggio a tutti, anche a chi di letteratura non gliene importa e non ne mastica, userò una citazione, una soltanto. Siamo nella prima lezione, Leggerezza. Uno degli emblemi di questo valore per Calvino è il Cavalcantiprota......more