（摘自《大不列颠百科全书》网上版中的“Italo Calvino”条目。）
1924年10月15日生于古巴的Santiago de las Vegas，1985年9月19日在意大利的Siena去世。
意大利新闻工作者，短篇小说家,作家，他的奇特和充满想象的寓言作品使他成为二十世纪最重要的意大利小说家之一。
卡尔维诺童年时就离开古巴回意大利。第二次世界大战时他参加了意大利抵抗组织，战后定居于都灵，并得到了文学学士学位，同时为共产党的周刊L'Unità和Einaudi 出版社工作。从1959年至1966年他和Elio Vittorini 一起编辑左翼杂志Il Menabò di letteratura 。
卡尔维诺最早的作品都与他参加抵抗组织的经历有关：新现实主义的小说Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno （《通往蜘蛛巢的小路》，1947年出版）通过一个未成年人的经历审视了抵抗运动，这个少年人面对周围的成年人和一系列事件，感到无助；名为Ultimo viene il corvo 的短篇小说集（《亚当，午后和其他故事》，1949年出版）。
50年代卡尔维诺果断地转向幻想和寓言作品的创作，其中的三篇小说为他带来了国际知名度。第一部Il visconte dimezzato (《分成两半的子爵》，1952出版)是一个人被炮火劈成两半的寓言故事—— 一半身子行善一半身子做恶——通过与一个农家女子的爱情又合二为一。第二部Il barone rampante的声誉最高(《The Baron in the Trees》，1957年出版)，这是十九世纪一位贵族的传奇故事，一天他决心爬到树上，从此双脚不再沾地面半步。但是他确实在树上完整分享了他的同胞在地上的生活。这篇故事机智地探讨了现实和想象之间的联系和对立。第三部 Il cavaliere inesistente (《不存在的骑士》，1959年出版)是对中世纪骑士小说的模仿。
卡尔维诺后期的幻想作品有：cosmicomiche (《宇宙连环画》，1965年出版)对宇宙创作和进化的意识流叙述；稍后的 Le città invisibili (《看不见的骑士》，1972年出版)， Il castello dei destini incrociati (《命运交错的城堡》，1973年出版)和 Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore (《如果冬夜，一个旅人》，1979年出版),卡尔维诺使用了游戏般创新的结构和多变的视点，目的是考察机会、巧合和变化的本质。Una pietra sopra: Discorsi di letteratura e società (《文学的作用》，1980年出版)是他为Il Menabò杂志写的文章的结集。
（阮一峰 译）
附原文：
This is the entry for Italo Calvino from the online Encylopaedia Britannica.
CALVINO, ITALO
(b. Oct. 15, 1923, Santiago de las Vegas, Cuba--d. Sept. 19, 1985, Siena, Italy)
Italian journalist, short-story writer, and novelist, whose whimsical and imaginative fables made him one of the most important Italian fiction writers in the 20th century.
Calvino left Cuba for Italy in his youth. He joined the Italian Resistance during World War II and after the war settled in Turin, obtaining his degree in literature while working for the Communist periodical L'Unità and for the publishing house of Einaudi. From 1959 to 1966 he edited, with Elio Vittorini, the left-wing magazine Il Menabò di letteratura.
Two of Calvino's first fictional works were inspired by his participation in the Italian Resistance: the Neorealistic novel Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno (1947; The Path to the Nest of Spiders), which views the Resistance through the experiences of an adolescent as helpless in the midst of events as the adults around him; and the collection of stories entitled Ultimo viene il corvo (1949; Adam, One Afternoon, and Other Stories).
Calvino turned decisively to fantasy and allegory in the 1950s, producing the three fantastic tales that brought him international acclaim. The first of these fantasies, Il visconte dimezzato (1952; "The Cloven Viscount," in The Nonexistent Knight & the Cloven Viscount), is an allegorical story of a man split in two--a good half and an evil half--by a cannon shot; he becomes whole through his love for a peasant girl. The second and most highly praised fantasy, Il barone rampante (1957; The Baron in the Trees), is a whimsical tale of a 19th-century nobleman who one day decides to climb into the trees and who never sets foot on the ground again. From the trees he does, however, participate fully in the affairs of his fellow men below. The tale wittily explores the interaction and tension between reality and imagination. The third fantasy, Il cavaliere inesistente (1959; "The Nonexistent Knight," in The Nonexistent Knight & the Cloven Viscount), is a mock epic chivalric tale.
Among Calvino's later works of fantasy is Le cosmicomiche (1965; Cosmicomics), a stream-of-consciousness narrative that treats the creation and evolution of the universe. In the later novels Le città invisibili (1972; Invisible Cities), Il castello dei destini incrociati (1973; The Castle of Crossed Destinies), and Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore (1979; If on a Winter's Night a Traveler), Calvino uses playfully innovative structures and shifting viewpoints in order to examine the nature of chance, coincidence, and change. Una pietra sopra: Discorsi di letteratura e società (1980; The Uses of Literature) is a collection of essays he wrote for Il Menabò.