Something must always remain that eludes us ... For power to have an object on which it can be exercised, a space in which to stretch out its arms ... As long as I know there exists in the world someone who does tricks only for the love of the trick, as long as I know there is a woman who loves reading for reading's sake, I can convince myself that the world continues ... And every evening I, too, abandon myself to reading, like that distant unknown woman ....

Viewing civilian life as a continuation of the partisan struggle he confirmed his membership of the Italian Communist Party. In 1947 he graduated with a Master's thesis on Joseph Conrad wrote short stories in his spare time and landed a job in the publicity department at the Einaudi publishing house run by Giulio Einaudi. Austere anti-Fascist freethinkers Eva and Mario refused to give their sons any religious education.

Italo Calvino (Italian: [ˈiːtalo kalˈviːno]; 15 October 1923 – 19 September 1985) was an Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels. Lionised in Britain and the United States he was the most-translated contemporary Italian writer at the time of his death and a noted contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature.