The Rain Came Last & Other Stories (New Directions Revived Modern Classics) - Softcover

Tucci, Niccolo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0811211258 ISBN 13: 9780811211253

Publisher: New Directions, 1990

Synopsis

Born in 1908, Niccolò Tucci is the author of six books (three in Italian; three, English). He first became known in America for his articles and stories published in various leading periodicals―among them Partisan Review, Harper's, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker. The Rain Came Last is the first collection of Tucci's English-language stories to be published.

Mary McCarthy remarks in her introduction that the material Tucci delineates lies "somewhere between excruciated memory and 'happy' invention." He writes of his childhood and adolescence in the remote Tuscany countryside where his family lived, dislocated from its grand and opulent past. Later, in a different dislocation, Tucci's stories spring from his urbane and bohemian adult years in Manhattan, to which he emigrated in the 1930s. Very few other writers for whom English was not a native language have adopted and adapted it in so masterly and personal a fashion―Conrad and Nabokov among the rare exceptions. "He is," comments Mary McCarthy, "an international man, a very unusual thing, and it is that perhaps that has put and kept him in a class by himself."

About this title

From the Back Cover

The Rain Came Last is the first collection of Tucci's English-language stories to be published. Mary McCarthy remarks in her introduction that the material Tucci delineates lies 'somewhere between excruciated memory and 'happy' invention.' He writes of his childhood and adolescence in the remote Tuscany countryside where his family lived, dislocated from its grand and opulent past.

About the Author

Born in Switzerland of an Italian mother and a Russian father, Niccolo grew up in privileged circumstances that were eliminated by the Bolshevik Revolution. His family relocated to Tuscany. In 1938, he resigned a position with Mussolini's Press Ministry and immigrated to the US. He wrote numerous short stories and a few longer works, many of which are largely autobiographical.

Edition details

• Publisher: New Directions
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0811211258
• ISBN 13: 9780811211253
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 223