Theatre groups from psychiatric hospitals, commando squads of feminists, research teams, groups dedicated to group analysis, and couples whose only consolation for living as a couple seems to be to produce manuscripts, besiege the corridors of the publishing house. This is the infernal vision of the publishing industry ltalo Calvino offers in his latest novel, or non-novel, or invocation of The Novel, ‘Se un viaggiatore una notte’ (If one night a traveller…, Rizzoli, 1979).

In the midst of Calvino’s book is the protagonist, a reader who is also the reader of Calvino’s work, in search of pure narrative, a book presenting no world-vision but only the wonder of its own growth as it buds, branches and thickens with the leaves of thickening plots. The