Marcovaldo

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Marcovaldo is a collection of twenty short stories written by Italo Calvino It was initially published as Marcovaldo ovvero Le stagione in città (Marcovaldo, or The Seasons in the City). It was published in 1963 but the first stories were written in the early 1950s. The twenty stories have been structured so as to represent the yearly seasonal cycle five times.

The Marcovaldo series depicts the life of a poor rural man with his family living in a big industrial city in northern Italy. The central character Marcovaldo has an affinity with nature and a distaste with city life. In each story Marcovaldo succumbs to something that appears natural and beautiful but actually disappoints him. Common themes in the stories include pollution, appearance vs. reality, failure, poverty and consumerism. In each story, nature is portrayed as positive whereas the city is portrayed in a negative way.