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3.5 

Numbers in the Dark

By Italo Calvino
Numbers in the Dark by Italo Calvino digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

From the acclaimed, genre-bending Italian fabulist author, a posthumous collection of career-spanning stories previously unavailable in English.

“Everybody telephones everybody at every possible moment, and nobody can speak to anybody . . . Distance has been the warp that supports the weft of every love story.” —from Numbers in the Dark

Written between 1943 and 1984, the stories in Numbers in the Dark span the career of one of fiction’s modern masters: from Italo Calvino’s earliest fables, to tales informed by life in World War II–era Italy, to the delightful experimentation that would define his later work. Here are speculative stories on life in the digital age, genre-bending wonders, and “impossible interviews” with the likes of Montezuma and a Neanderthal. Deftly translated by Tim Parks, Numbers in the Dark shows off Calvino’s lifelong gift for subtle humor and shimmering philosophical insight.

Praise for Numbers in the Dark

Numbers in the Dark is a glorious grab-bag . . . [with] enough gems from every phase in Calvino’s career to make it feel indispensable.” —Seattle Times

“These stories reward the patient reader with wisdom, humor, and insight.” —Library Journal

“Calvino . . . is well-represented in this continually surprising collection . . . . Novelist Parks's superb translations capture Calvino’s quirky, iconoclastic voice, helping to make this a worthy addition to the Calvino shelf.” —Publishers Weekly

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6 Reviews

3.5
Beaming Face with Smiling Eyes“the way calvino writes is very beautiful and delicate, it is as if all the words are chosen with care, making sure that it resonates the sounds of his heart. all of the stories are worth reading but amongst them my favourites are good for nothing, a general in the library, numbers in the dark, the tribe with its eyes in the sky, the burning of the abominable house, before you say hello, and the mirror, the target.”

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