Product details
- ISBN 9780099430865
- Weight: 280g
- Dimensions: 130 x 198mm
- Publication Date: 20 Feb 1992
- Publisher: Vintage Publishing
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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Viscount Medardo is bisected by a Turkish cannonball, Baron Cosimo retires to the trees for the rest of his days, and Agiluf the Knight is an empty suit of armour.
Our Ancestors brings together three surreal novellas set in distinct historical worlds across medieval and early modern Europe. In The Cloven Viscount, a nobleman returns from war as two separate beings, one cruel and one impossibly virtuous, leaving his community to suffer the consequences.
In The Baron in the Trees, a young aristocrat climbs into the branches of the Italian Riviera and refuses to touch the ground again, living out his life among the leaves while history moves below him.
In The Nonexistent Knight, a suit of armour fights in the army of Charlemagne, sustained only by will and duty.
Our Ancestors blends satire with fable, exploring how power, war and social expectation shape the self.
'The most magically ingenious of the contemporary Italian novelists' The Times
Italo Calvino (Author, Introducer)
Italo Calvino was born in Cuba in 1923 and grew up in Italy. He was an essayist and journalist and a member of the editorial staff of Einaudi in Turin. One of the most respected writers of the twentieth century, his best-known works of fiction include Invisible Cities, If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, Marcovaldo and Mr Palomar. In 1973 he won the prestigious Premio Feltrinelli. He died in 1985. A collection of Calvino's posthumous personal writings, The Hermit in Paris, was published in 2003.
