Last Comes the Raven

By: Italo Calvino

Narrated by: Jefferson Mays

The first complete English-language edition of one of Calvino’s important early short-story collections.

Blending reality and illusion with elegance and precision, the stories in this collection - one of Calvino’s earliest - take place in a World War II era and postwar Italy tinged with the visionary and fablelike qualities that would come to define this master storyteller’s later style.

A trio of gluttonous burglars invades a pastry shop; two 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. Throughout, Calvino delights in discovering hidden truths beneath the surface of everyday life.

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 several stories newly translated by Ann Goldstein, is an important addition to Calvino’s legacy.

©1994 Palomar S.r.l. e Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S.p.A., Milano (P)2021 Recorded Books

Early Calvino stories

Without Calvino’s later masterworks, this collection would not have merited translation. Calvino is finding his voice here but is still working in Realism. While the prose is good, most of these stories lack what Aristotle would call endings. Each tale wanders for about 15 minutes and then just stop. A couple stories feel whole and worthwhile (“Robbery at a Bakery”, “A Goatherd at Luncheon”), but most are frustratingly lacking in a clear purpose or complete narrative.