Everybody telephones everybody at every possible moment, and nobody can speak to anybody … Distance has been the warp that supports the weft of every love story. – from Numbers in the Dark Written between 1943 and 1984, the stories in Numbers in the Dark span the career of one of fiction’s modern masters: from Italo Calvino’s earliest fables, to tales informed by life in World War II-era Italy, to the delightful experimentation that would define his later work. Here are speculative stories on life in the digital age, genre-bending wonders, and impossible interviews with the likes of Montezuma and a Neanderthal. Deftly translated by Tim Parks, Numbers in the Dark shows off Calvino’s lifelong gift for subtle humor and shimmering philosophical insight.

Numbers in the Dark is a glorious grab-bag … [with] enough gems from every phase in Calvino’s career to make it feel indispensable. – Seattle Times