Italo Calvino
(Key Porter Books, 2007)
Year after year, through stifling summers and frigid winters, Marcovaldo plods on. But while his feet travel dirty city streets, his eyes seek out the world of nature. He looks beyond a flashing neon sign advertising cognac to the moon and the Milky Way; in the gutter he sees mushrooms and scarab beetles. His passion for nature not only protects him from the squalor of his life, but leads him into strange quests and encounters in a bizarre, dreamlike world.
Set in a bleak industrial city north of Italy, these 20 stories and vignettes follow five revolutions of the four seasons in the life of an unskilled labourer who never gives up, never relinquishes his dreams and his passion for nature.
