ROBERTO CALASSO (b. 1941) is an Italian writer, editor, and publisher who The Paris Review has called "a literary institution of one".  Apart from his mother tongue, Calasso is fluent in French, English, Spanish, German, Latin and ancient Greek, and has also studied Sanskrit.  The fundamental thematic concept of his work is the relationship between myth and the emergence of modern consciousness.

Calasso's writing does not fit easily into traditional categories.  He began what he considered a work-in-progress with the publication of THE RUINS OF KASCH (1983).  It is a chaotic text built on the decline of the legendary African kingdom of Kasch after its traditional ritual sacrifice of the king is abandoned, and whose annihilation becomes emblematic of the ruin of the ancient and modern worlds.  It was followed by THE MARRIAGE OF CADMUS AND HARMONY (1988), which retells classic Greek myths in an attempt to evoke the primal meanings they once conveyed — the absolute and arbitrary power of nature and existence as embodied in the gods.  The book was described as "a complex and intellectually dazzling novel using ancient Greek mythology to explore the origins of Western thought", and achieved international critical and popular acclaim.  In KA (1996), the subject of the re-telling is Hindu mythology.

K. (2002) is the culmination of Calasso's lifelong fascination with Franz Kafka's work and an unprecedented consideration of the mystery of Kafka himself.  An adjective used by Proust to describe a shade of pink inspired TIEPOLO PINK (2006), a book-length essay about the 18th century Italian painter and printmaker Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.  With LA FOLIE BAUDELAIRE (2008), Calasso again broadens his scope to fresco a whole civilization, that of Paris in the latter half of the 19th century, reconsidering the lives and works of the post-romantic generation of writers and artists from Baudelaire to Valéry.

In LITERATURE AND THE GODS (2001), a series of essays, Calasso uncovers the divine whisper that lies behind the best poetry and prose from across the centuries, and gives us a renewed sense of the mystery and enchantment of great literature.  He returned to India in ARDOR (2010) for an exhaustive analysis of the theory and practice of Vedic sacrifice and its significance for post-modern consciousness: "If the Vedic people had been asked why they did not build cities, they could have replied: we did not seek power, but rapture."  THE ART OF THE PUBLISHER (2013) is an interior look at Calasso's work as a publisher and his reflections on the art of book publishing.

THE CELESTIAL HUNTER (2016) is a series of meditations on prehistoric human consciousness and a provocative exploration of our relationship with myth, the divine, and the idea of transformation.  THE UNNAMABLE PRESENT (2017), the ninth book in his ongoing series on the primal forces of civilization, ponders the obscure and ubiquitous process of transformation happening today in all societies, which makes so many previous names either inadequate or misleading or a parody of what they used to mean.


The following books are in ePUB format unless otherwise noted:

* Ardor (FSG, 2014).  R. Dixon, trans.
* Art of the Publisher, The (FSG, 2015).  R. Dixon, trans.
* Celestial Hunter, The (FSG, 2020).  R. Dixon, trans.
* Forty-Nine Steps, The (Vintage, 2013).  J. Shepley, trans.
* K. (Penguin, 2020).  G. Brock, trans.
* K. (Vintage, 2005).  G. Brock, trans.
* Ka (Penguin, 2019).  T. Parks, trans.
* Ka: Stories of the Mind and Gods of India (Vintage, 1999).  T. Parks, trans.
* L'editoria come genere letterario (Adelphiana, 2001) — PDF
* La Folie Baudelaire (Penguin, 2013).  A. McEwan, trans.
* Literature and the Gods (Vintage, 2002).  T. Parks, trans.
* Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony (Knopf, 1993). Parks, trans. — ePUB + PDF^
* Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony (Penguin, 2019).  T. Parks, trans.
* Ruin of Kasch, The (FSG, 2018).  R. Dixon, trans.
* Ruin of Kasch, The (Harvard, 1994).  W. Weaver & S. Sartarelli, trans. — PDF
* Tiepolo Pink (Knopf, 2009).  A. McEwan, trans.
* Unnamable Present, The (FSG, 2019).  R. Dixon, trans.

PDF^ courtesy of @pharmakate

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