Book description
In his acclaimed work Danube, Claudio Magris painted a vast
canvas stretching from the source of the river to the Black Sea. Now
he focuses on the tiny borderlands of Istria and Italy where he was
born and where he has lived most intensely. From the forests of Monte
Nevoso, to the hidden valleys of the Tyrol, to a Trieste café,
Microcosms pieces together a mosaic of stories - comic, tragic,
picaresque, nostalgic - from life's minor characters. Their worlds
might be small, but they are far from minimalist: in them flashes the
great, the meaningful, the unrepeatable significance of every existence.
Microcosms won the Strega Prize in 1997.
CLAUDIO MAGRIS, scholar and critic, was born in Trieste in 1939.
After graduating from the University of Turin, he lectured there in
German Language and Literature from 1970 to 1978. He holds a chair in
Germanic Studies in the University of Trieste, and was for a period a
member of the Italian parliament. He is the author of works of literary
criticism and plays and has translated works by Isben, Kleist, and
Schnitzler. He won international acclaim for his remarkable study of
middle Europe,
Danube
. His novel,
A Different Sea
is also published by Harvill.
