Last Comes the Raven

The first complete English-language edition of one of Calvino's important early short story collections Throughout his stories, Calvino delights in discovering hidden truths beneath the surface of everyday life. Blending reality and illusion with elegance and precision, the tales in this collection take place in a World War II–era and postwar Italy tinged with visionary and fablelike qualities. Three novice burglars accidentally break into a pastry shop; a pair of children trespass upon a forbidden garden; a wealthy family invites a rustic goatherd to lunch, only to mock him. In the title story, a compact masterpiece of shifting perspectives, a panicked soldier tries to keep his wits—and his life—when he faces off against a young partisan with a loaded rifle and miraculous aim. Stories from Last Comes the Raven have been published in translation, but the collection as a whole has never appeared in English. This volume, including...