Italian author Italo Calvino's "Marcovaldo" is a collection of short stories that takes us on a tour of Italy from bust to boom; the first, set in the mid 1950s portrays a poor Italy, and the last, a 1960s Italy that is experiencing the joys of boom time. The stories are like a chronological development of a nation over a decade, with stories set in the fall, winter, spring and summer, repeated five times, making twenty stories in all. The stories were written in the time that they were set so that the author was experiencing the things that he was actually writing about. The book was published in 1963 under the title "The Seasons in the City".
"Marcovaldo" tells the story of the life of a poor, rural Italian man who lives with his family in Northern Italy, in a large industrialized city. He is an unskilled laborer who hates his environment because he feels a connection to the countryside that he can never feel for the city. Just as the seasons that provide a backdrop for the stories are cyclical, so are its themes; repeatedly the author goes back to themes of the dangers of urbanization, pollution, poverty, consumerism and the fact that things are not always what they appear to be.
The book was well received both by critics and by the reading public. Calvino was praised universally for the poetic nature of his prose and also for the way in which he can see poetry in the everyday, and writes about it in a way that makes it seem anything but everyday. At the time of his death he was the most-translated Italian author in contemporary fiction, although he was really not an Italian at all; born in Cuba, he and his family returned to his parents' country - Italy - when he was two years old. His family were experimental floriculturists and this love of the countryside and respect for nature is apparent in his writings, and in particular in this collection of stories, in the character of Marcovaldo. Because of his family's scientific leanings he always felt that his passion for literature made him the black sheep of the Calvino family.
The book was adapted for television in 1970 when a mini-series consisting of six hour long episodes was made for Italian television. Although it was never the recipient of any awards, Calvino's writing was bestowed with a great many honors, including The Riccione Prize, and Calvino himself was inducted into the Legion of Honor, a French military organization who recognized him for his service with the Resistance during the German occupation of Northern Italy during the Second World War.
