Le citta invisibili

Quel est le sujet du livre "Le citta invisibili"

«A un imperatore melanconico, un viaggiatore visionario racconta di città impossibili. Quello che sta a cuore al mio Marco Polo è scoprire le ragioni segrete che hanno portato gli uomini a vivere nelle città, ragioni che possono valere al di là di tutte le crisi. Le città sono un insieme di tante cose: di memoria, di desideri, di segni d'un linguaggio; le città sono luoghi di scambio, ma questi scambi non sono soltanto scambi di merci, sono scambi di parole, di desideri, di ricordi.» Italo Calvino

Italo Calvino was born in Cuba and grew up in Italy. He was a journalist and writer of short stories and novels. His best known works include the Our Ancestors trilogy (1952-1959), the Cosmicomics collection of short stories (1965), and the novels Invisible Cities (1972) and If On a Winter's Night a Traveler (1979).

His style is not easy to classify; much of his writing has an air reminiscent to that of fantastical fairy tales (Our Ancestors, Cosmicomics), although sometimes his writing is more "realistic" and in the scenic mode of observation (Difficult Loves, for example). Some of his writing has been called postmodern, reflecting on literature and the act of reading, while some has been labeled magical realist, others fables, others simply "modern". He wrote: "My working method has more often than not involved the subtraction of weight. I have tried to remove weight, sometimes from people, sometimes from heavenly bodies, sometimes from cities; above all I have tried to remove weight from the structure of stories and from language."