‘Gleaming with resonant clarity, Calvino’s fiction hits the mind’s eye with the hard-edged sumptuousness, of a pre-Raphaelite painting. Vividnes, enthralls him. Story after story in DIFFICULT LOVES sparkle, with heightened reSponsiveness to life. Capturing the tiniest tactile sensations and the heart-pounding excitement that amplifies them, Calvino sensitises his characters down to the last straining tendon and straying finger-tip’