Marcovaldobucoliclife

1. Erasmus+ project - Tell me a story, please!
Marcovaldo – a man lost in the industrial world or the lover of the
bucolic life?!
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".

2. "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.
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.
Dani and Ália – 9th
level
Agrupamento de Escolas Latino Coelho, Lamego - Portugal