Collections of Traditional Folk Tales

"The Feathered Ogre" was originally published as part of the collection Italian Folk Tales (1956), which Calvino transcribed and retold from the oral tradition. The most famous collection of folk tales is probably that of the Brother's Grimm, who wrote a comprehensive collection of traditional German folk tales, which have been republished many times. Less commonly known is Charles Chesnutt's 1899 collection of African-American folk tales, entitled The Conjure Woman. In 1935 Zora Neale Hurston published Mules and Men, a collection of African-American folk tales she gathered from oral stories during her travels in rural Florida and Louisiana. Leslie Marmon Silko's book, Storyteller (1981), translates oral traditions from Native-American culture into a written form.

Mussolini and Fascist Italy

Calvino was a staunch critic of the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini in Italy. Mussolini, an ex-socialist, was the leader of the fascist movement in Italy, which had gained...