Difficult Loves

Intricate interior lives are brilliantly explored in these short stories, now presented in one definitive collection as Calvino intended them

In Difficult Loves, Italy’s master storyteller weaves tales in which cherished deceptions and illusions of love—including self-love—are swept away in magical instants of recognition. A soldier is reduced to quivering fear by the presence of a full-figured woman in his train compartment; a young clerk leaves a lady’s bed at dawn; a young woman is isolated from bathers on a beach by the loss of her bikini bottom. Each of them discovers hidden truths beneath the surface of everyday life.   
This is the first edition in English to present the collection as Calvino originally envisioned it, and includes two stories newly translated by Ann Goldstein.

• The Complete Cosmicomics
• Invisible Cities
• If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
• Six Memos for the Next Millennium
• Suddenly, a Knock on the Door: Stories
• The Castle of Crossed Destinies
• Italian Folktales
• Marcovaldo: or the Seasons in the City
• We the Animals
• The Reader