The Complete Cosmicomics

For readers of international fiction, the late Italian writer Calvino (:italic'>Invisible Cities) needs no introduction. A world-class novelist with a penchant for experimentation, Calvino believed that realist fiction had exhausted itself and that only radical departures from traditional narrative and subject matter would revitalize it. Calvino's response to this dilemma was to invent a new genre called cosmicomics: part sf, part fabulism, and part graphic-novel storyboard. Presented as linked stories, the narrative is told by Qfwfq, a creature as old as time itself, who has witnessed the formation of the galaxies and the slow evolution of the earth. Qfwfq and his primordial companions inhabit the earth as it transforms itself from a molten planetoid to a livable environment. Taking to heart Horace's dictum that literature must instruct and delight, Calvino's stories offer us beauty and hilarity while imparting concepts from the hard sciences. In this way, the book resembles a creation myth, which entertains its audience even as it transmits cultural knowledge.