Revising, Re-visioning: Italo Calvino and the Politics of Play

Italo Calvino’s earliest writing is tied closely to his involvement in the Italian anti-fascist Resistance, which included active military combat in the Second World War. As a result, the writer’s proximity and interest in the cultural and political environment of Italy after the war is characterized by direct involvement. Whether actively participating in the communist party, or later, writing and editing some of Italy’s most influential socio-political journals, Calvino’s early career is inextricably tied to the postwar debates surrounding cultural and political progressivism. Between 1943-1963—years that were pivotal to the emergence of a contemporary Italy—the Italian intelligentsia meted out critical issues such as the role of intellectuals and cultural production in a modern political landscape. In the simplest terms, the goal of my comps project is to outline the historical circumstances that led Calvino to a life as a political writer, and to push back against the commonplace critique of Calvino’s late literary career that sees his postmodern fiction as a lapse into nihilistic solipsism, or in short: as an abandonment of his earlier political commitments as a writer