Marcovaldo is a collection of twenty short stories written by Italo Calvino

Italo Calvino

Italo Calvino was an Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels. His best known works include the Our Ancestors trilogy , the Cosmicomics collection of short stories , and the novels Invisible Cities and If on a winter's night a traveler .Lionised in Britain and the United States,...

. It was initially published as Marcovaldo ovvero Le stagioni in città (Marcovaldo, or The Seasons in the City). It was published in 1963 but the first stories were written in the early 1950s. The twenty stories have been structured so as to represent the yearly seasonal cycle five times.

The Marcovaldo series depicts the life of a poor rural man with his family living in a big industrial city in northern Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. The central character Marcovaldo has an affinity with nature and a distaste with city life. In each story Marcovaldo succumbs to something that appears natural and beautiful but actually disappoints him. Common themes in the stories include pollution

Pollution

Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into a natural environment that causes instability, disorder, harm or discomfort to the ecosystem i.e. physical systems or living organisms. Pollution can take the form of chemical substances or energy, such as noise, heat or light...

, appearance

Visual appearance

The visual appearance of objects is given by the way in which they reflect and transmit light. The color of objects is determined by the parts of the spectrum of light that are reflected or transmitted without being absorbed...

 vs. reality

Reality

In philosophy, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible...

, failure

Failure

Failure refers to the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, and may be viewed as the opposite of success. Product failure ranges from failure to sell the product to fracture of the product, in the worst cases leading to personal injury, the province of forensic...

, poverty

Poverty

Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...

 and consumerism

Consumerism

Consumerism is a social and economic order that is based on the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen...

.

Marcovaldo works at Sbav and Co.