**These early short stories brim with the beauty of the Italian countryside and seaside, telling tales both sumptuous and unnerving.**Calvino's war-torn Italy is vivid, intense, almost hyper-real. A trio of greedy burglars rob a pastry shop, a boy offers a girl presents of toads and insects from the...

**These early short stories brim with the beauty of the Italian countryside and seaside, telling tales both sumptuous and unnerving.**Calvino's war-torn Italy is vivid, intense, almost hyper-real. A trio of greedy burglars rob a pastry shop, a boy offers a girl presents of toads and insects from the garden, a wealthy family invites a rustic goatherd to lunch, only to mock him. In every story he reveals the hidden meaning beneath the surface of everyday life, and the ludicrousness of war.

Some stories from* Last Comes the Raven have been previously available in the collection Adam, One Afternoon *. This new expanded collection includes several stories newly translated by Ann Goldstein and is an important addition to Calvino's legacy.

'In Last Comes the Raven, a collection of early stories, we find the man behind the magician' * New Yorker*.