You walk for days among trees and among stones. Rarely does the eye light on a thing, and then only when it has recognized that thing as the sign of another thing: a print in the sand indicates the tiger's passage; a marsh announces a vein of water; the hibiscus flower, the end of winter. All the rest is silent and interchangeable; trees and stones are only what they are.

Viewing civilian life as a continuation of the partisan struggle he confirmed his membership of the Italian Communist Party. In 1947 he graduated with a Master's thesis on Joseph Conrad wrote short stories in his spare time and landed a job in the publicity department at the Einaudi publishing house run by Giulio Einaudi. Austere anti-Fascist freethinkers Eva and Mario refused to give their sons any religious education.

Italo Calvino (Italian: [ˈiːtalo kalˈviːno]; 15 October 1923 – 19 September 1985) was an Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels. Lionised 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.