"Weird [and] wonderful" stories by a Strega Prize winner with "shades of Fellini, shades of Dickens, shades of the great Italian horror director Mario Bava" ( Los Angeles Times).From "The Epidemic," which traces the gradual effects of a "state influenza" that targets those who disagree with the government, to "The Collapse of the Baliverna," in which a man puzzles over whether a misstep on his part caused the collapse of a building, to "Seven Floors," which...

Poe and Kafka meet The Twilight Zone in this anthology of fifty fantastical tales, many of them reflecting the political and social energies of the time, by an Italian master of the short story.Dino Buzzati was a prolific writer of stories, publishing several hundred over the course of forty years. Many of them are fantastic—reminiscent of Kafka and Poe in their mixture of horror and absurdity, and at the same time anticipating the alternate realities of

A glory-starved soldier spends his life awaiting an absent, long-expected enemy in this influential Italian classic of existentialism, now newly translated and with its originally intended title restored.At the start of Dino Buzzati’s The Stronghold, newly commissioned officer Giovanni Drogo has just received his first posting: the remote Fortezza Bastiani. North of this stronghold are impassable mountains; to the south, a great desert; and somewhere out t...

In this prophetic allegory about artificial intelligence by a renowned figure of twentieth-century Italian literature, a modest university professor becomes involved in a remote and enigmatic project in the middle of the Cold War.At the beginning of Dino Buzzati’s The Singularity, Ermanno Ismani, an unassuming university professor, is summoned by the minister of defense to accept a two-year, top-secret mission at a mysterious research center, isolated from...

Accomplished in his career but unaccomplished in love, a middle-aged architect is torn apart by his obsession with an enigmatic young woman in this delicately told story of desire and abjection by a titan of Italian literature.Antonio Dorigo is a successful architect in Milan, nearing fifty, who has always been afraid of women. A regular at an upscale brothel for years, he mourns the lack of close female companionship in his life. One afternoon, the madam at the br...

Starving after a harsh winter, the bears descend from the mountains in search of food and invade the valley below, where they face fierce opposition from the army of the Grand Duke of Sicily. After many battles, scrapes and dangers, the bears' reign is established over the land, but their victory comes at a price. This edition contains A Reader's Companion by Lemony Snicket, including fan activities for young readers.

This volume brings together twenty of the best stories written by Dino Buzzati - author of the celebrated novel The Tartar Steppe and one of the most original voices in twentieth-century literature - stories which show the Italian master's taste for the bizarre and the humorous, and for exploring the darker recesses of the human psyche. From `The Collapse of the Baliverna', to `The Epidemic', and `Terror at the Scala', these stories show how strange and unexpected events can creep into eve...

Penelope. Immortalised in legend and myth as the devoted wife of the glorious Odysseus, silently weaving and unpicking and weaving again as she waits for her husband's return.Now Penelope wanders the underworld, spinning a different kind of thread: her own side of the story - a tale of lust, greed and murder.

"A transporting novel told in the voice of a girl Virgil left in the margins. It is an absorbing, reverent, magnificent story.” —Cleveland Plain DealerNational Book Award–winning literary legend Ursula K. Le Guin reimagines Virgil's epic poem The Aeneid through the eyes and voice of Lavinia, Aeneas' last wife.In The Aeneid, Vergil’s hero fights to claim the king’s daughter, Lavinia, with whom he i...

"Mason has found a supple, lyrical voice in these pages that captures the spirit of the original Odyssey and at the same time feels freshly contemporary." —Michiko Kakutani, The New York TimesA New York Times BestsellerA New York Times Notable Book of the YearZachary Mason's brilliant and beguiling de...

A group of strangers share tales of epic fantasy adventures as they confess what they know about a missing gem—or else risk the wrath of an angry god.Legend has it that Quarn Axeswinger led a rebellion against the king but lost his sight in battle. The god Strife appeared and bestowed upon Quarn a jewel that gave him a mysterious new power. The man only had to promise to destroy any who defied him and spare those who submit. Quarn did . . . and went on to build a m...

From the author of I, Claudius: "A re-weaving of Homeric myth reveals the true story of The Return of Odysseus for Nausicaa" ( Kirkus Reviews).In this innovative re-imagining of the Odyssey's history, Sicilian princess Nausicaa recounts her story, and how she, not the poet Homer, came to write the Odyssey. Set in the eighth century BC, it recounts the story of a determined young woman who lives an adventurous life: rescuing her f...