By Serenella Iovino. Cambridge Elements, 2021.

Are chickens going extinct? What is it like to be a white gorilla in Barcelona’s zoo? How threatening can be an ant? Italo Calvino’s Animals: Anthropocene Stories by Serenella Iovino has just been published by Cambridge UP. Free access available until 10 September using this link.

Italo Calvino’s Animals explores Anthropocene animals through the visionary eyes of a classic modern author. In Calvino’s stories, ants, cats, chickens, rabbits, gorillas, and other critters emerge as complex subjects and inhabitants of a world under siege. Beside them, another figure appears in the mirror: that of an anthropos without a capital A, epitome of subaltern humans with their challenges and inequalities, a companion species on the difficult path of co-evolution.