Joseph Francese is Associate Professor in the Department of Romance and Classical Languages at Michigan State University. He is the author of a monograph on Pier Paolo Pasolini and of a forthcoming study on Italian cultural politics in the early 1950s.

• Acknowledgments Abbreviations 1. Shifts and Imbrications I. Interrogating the PostmodernII. Modern/Postmodern2. Calvino: The Search for a Totality I. "Il midollo del leone"II. The "Turning Point"III. QfwfqIV. NonanthropocentrismV. Ti con zeroVI. The "Deductive Tales"VII. La memoria del mondo and Cosmicomiche vecchie e nuove3. Interlude: Late Modernist Metafiction. The Example of John Barth I. Realism, Modernism, PostmodernismII. The Death or Abdication of the AuthorIII. The FrametaleIV. Of Metafictional Kenosis (Exhaustion) and Resurrection (Replenishment)4. Calvino: The Materiality of the Referent. Writing and Ekphrasis I. The 1970sII. Le Città InvisibiliIII. Il Castello dei destini incrociatiIV. EkphrasisV. Writing5. Calvino: The Master Narrative I. Between the Infinite and the InfinitesimalII. Mathesis singularisIII. Encyclopedic KnowledgeIV. Palomar6. Postmodern Multiperspectivism I. The Oppositional Postmodern Narratives of Morrison, Doctorow, and TabucchiII. Morrison: Reinscribing History in BelovedA. Village Values, Communal Narration, Reader ParticipationB. BelovedIII. Doctorow: Recuperating Parallel Images of the PastIV. Tabucchi: The Angel of HistoryA. The Self as OtherB. L'angelo neroAfterword Notes Works Cited Index

"I particularly liked the clarity and certainty with which Francese investigates the distinctions between high modernism and postmodernism, particularly in the work of Calvino. I also found the approach he takes to postmodern narratives as responses, or interrogations, to postmodernity convincing. Although there are literally hundreds of books on postmodernism, there is no book that deals with Calvino (and the other writers included) from this perspective." — Robert Dombroski, City University of New York Graduate Center"The sections on Morrison and Tabucchi are nothing short of brilliant in their discussion of the immersion of the narrator in at least potentially postmodern texts, despite their remarkably different literary traditions. The crisp writing is especially effective, and the concern for historical development—including social and political as well as literary history—is exemplary throughout."—Gregory L. Lucente, University of Michigan

Joseph Francese is Associate Professor in the Department of Romance and Classical Languages at Michigan State University. He is the author of a monograph on Pier Paolo Pasolini and of a forthcoming study on Italian cultural politics in the early 1950s.

• Acknowledgments Abbreviations 1. Shifts and Imbrications I. Interrogating the PostmodernII. Modern/Postmodern2. Calvino: The Search for a Totality I. "Il midollo del leone"II. The "Turning Point"III. QfwfqIV. NonanthropocentrismV. Ti con zeroVI. The "Deductive Tales"VII. La memoria del mondo and Cosmicomiche vecchie e nuove3. Interlude: Late Modernist Metafiction. The Example of John Barth I. Realism, Modernism, PostmodernismII. The Death or Abdication of the AuthorIII. The FrametaleIV. Of Metafictional Kenosis (Exhaustion) and Resurrection (Replenishment)4. Calvino: The Materiality of the Referent. Writing and Ekphrasis I. The 1970sII. Le Città InvisibiliIII. Il Castello dei destini incrociatiIV. EkphrasisV. Writing5. Calvino: The Master Narrative I. Between the Infinite and the InfinitesimalII. Mathesis singularisIII. Encyclopedic KnowledgeIV. Palomar6. Postmodern Multiperspectivism I. The Oppositional Postmodern Narratives of Morrison, Doctorow, and TabucchiII. Morrison: Reinscribing History in BelovedA. Village Values, Communal Narration, Reader ParticipationB. BelovedIII. Doctorow: Recuperating Parallel Images of the PastIV. Tabucchi: The Angel of HistoryA. The Self as OtherB. L'angelo neroAfterword Notes Works Cited Index

"I particularly liked the clarity and certainty with which Francese investigates the distinctions between high modernism and postmodernism, particularly in the work of Calvino. I also found the approach he takes to postmodern narratives as responses, or interrogations, to postmodernity convincing. Although there are literally hundreds of books on postmodernism, there is no book that deals with Calvino (and the other writers included) from this perspective." — Robert Dombroski, City University of New York Graduate Center"The sections on Morrison and Tabucchi are nothing short of brilliant in their discussion of the immersion of the narrator in at least potentially postmodern texts, despite their remarkably different literary traditions. The crisp writing is especially effective, and the concern for historical development—including social and political as well as literary history—is exemplary throughout."—Gregory L. Lucente, University of Michigan

Joseph Francese is Associate Professor in the Department of Romance and Classical Languages at Michigan State University. He is the author of a monograph on Pier Paolo Pasolini and of a forthcoming study on Italian cultural politics in the early 1950s.

• Acknowledgments Abbreviations 1. Shifts and Imbrications I. Interrogating the PostmodernII. Modern/Postmodern2. Calvino: The Search for a Totality I. "Il midollo del leone"II. The "Turning Point"III. QfwfqIV. NonanthropocentrismV. Ti con zeroVI. The "Deductive Tales"VII. La memoria del mondo and Cosmicomiche vecchie e nuove3. Interlude: Late Modernist Metafiction. The Example of John Barth I. Realism, Modernism, PostmodernismII. The Death or Abdication of the AuthorIII. The FrametaleIV. Of Metafictional Kenosis (Exhaustion) and Resurrection (Replenishment)4. Calvino: The Materiality of the Referent. Writing and Ekphrasis I. The 1970sII. Le Città InvisibiliIII. Il Castello dei destini incrociatiIV. EkphrasisV. Writing5. Calvino: The Master Narrative I. Between the Infinite and the InfinitesimalII. Mathesis singularisIII. Encyclopedic KnowledgeIV. Palomar6. Postmodern Multiperspectivism I. The Oppositional Postmodern Narratives of Morrison, Doctorow, and TabucchiII. Morrison: Reinscribing History in BelovedA. Village Values, Communal Narration, Reader ParticipationB. BelovedIII. Doctorow: Recuperating Parallel Images of the PastIV. Tabucchi: The Angel of HistoryA. The Self as OtherB. L'angelo neroAfterword Notes Works Cited Index

"I particularly liked the clarity and certainty with which Francese investigates the distinctions between high modernism and postmodernism, particularly in the work of Calvino. I also found the approach he takes to postmodern narratives as responses, or interrogations, to postmodernity convincing. Although there are literally hundreds of books on postmodernism, there is no book that deals with Calvino (and the other writers included) from this perspective." — Robert Dombroski, City University of New York Graduate Center"The sections on Morrison and Tabucchi are nothing short of brilliant in their discussion of the immersion of the narrator in at least potentially postmodern texts, despite their remarkably different literary traditions. The crisp writing is especially effective, and the concern for historical development—including social and political as well as literary history—is exemplary throughout."—Gregory L. Lucente, University of Michigan