"In 'Cosmicomics,' I came close to science fiction - I was inspired by cosmological subjects and the workings of the universe and invented a character who was a sort of witness to everything that was happening inside the solar system."
Italo Calvino was an Italian novelist and short-story writer whose experimental and imaginative fiction made him one of the most influential postwar European authors. Born in 1923, he wrote major works including Invisible Cities and If on a winter's night a traveler. He died in Siena on 1985-09-19.