Wednesday, August 18, 2004

Difficult loves

Italo Calvino. Love letters. Copyright ownership? Publication injunction.

Illicit affair. Movie star. The disappearance of a cuckold.

The literary sensation of the year in Italy has turned the spotlight on a relationship paid scant attention by Calvino's biographers, and revealed a new side of an author otherwise renowned for his measured literary style.

Why was it paid scant attention? The torridness too cool to qualify as scandal among Italians? The preservation of their left-wing revolutionary idol?

No surprise. Beautiful stories. Romantic soul. Labyrinthine passions, precise and measured.

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