The first complete English-language edition of Calvino's early short story collection. Calvino was a fabulist and master of the surreal but this collection of early stories shows the enigmatic writer in a more realist mode. Taking place in Italy, both during and after the Second World War, rich with the beauty of the Italian countryside and seaside, these are sumptuous and at times unnerving stories. Circling the ludicrousness of war and the human condition, 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 gifts of toads and insects from the garden, a wealthy family invites a rustic goatherd to lunch, only to mock him. Throughout, Calvino revels in the hidden meaning beneath the surface of everyday life. 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.