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If on A winter's night a Traveler
Author: Italo Calivino

Publisher: Vintage Books
ISBN: 978-0-099-43089-6
Pages: 258
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"Italo Calvino's masterpiece combines a love story and a detective story into an exhilarating allegory of reading, in which the reader of the book becomes the book's central character. Based on a witty analogy between the reader's desire to finish the story and the lover's desire to consummate his or her passion, IF ON A WINTER'S NIGHT A TRAVELER is the tale of two bemused readers whose attempts to reach the end of the same book-IF ON A WINTER'S NIGHT A TRAVELER, by Italo Calvino, of course-are constantly and comically frustrated. In between chasing missing chapters of the book, the hapless readers tangle with an international conspiracy, a rogue translator, an elusive novelist, a disintegrating publishing house, and several oppressive governments. The result is a literary labyrinth of storylines that interrupt one another-an Arabian Nights of the postmodern age. "