Traveling within Books

Mail Artists Pay Homage to Italo Calvino

The Italian writer Italo Calvino (1923-1985) is still one of the best known and most influential writers of his country. By the time of his death, his books were available in 40 countries, among them  Armenia, Burma, Bulgaria, China, Colombia, Iran, Lithuania, and Turkey.  In 1974, Joseph McElroy, critic for the  The New York Times, called him  “Italy’s most original storyteller”. And, as Calvino admitted, “a tormentor of translators”, always ready to discuss at length the use of a single word.

Calvino, who was a partisan during the war and left the powerful Communist party because of the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, combined a keen interest in physical and technical processes with an unbridled imagination. 

Gerald Jatzek’s card draws inspiration from Calvino’s preface to his novel Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore (If on a winter’s night a traveler, 1979) for his card. In this text, the author gives the reader the advice,

“Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade. Best to close the door; the TV is always on in the next room.”

Calvino — A Dreamer in Love with Reality

Exhibition in the Galleria Artheka 32, 25 Via Sartena 30/32, Ostia Lido, Italy, 13.-25.4.2024

Opening: 13 April 2024 at 6 pm 18.00

Contact

  • +39 360 997 483
  • artheka32@gmail.com

Published by Marius van der Graaf

artist, musician, write & traveler

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