Regarding the core of literary creation, I recommend the Memorandum on Literature in the New Millen

This book is a collection of the first five speeches of the "Norton Address" delivered by Castel Vino at Harvard University. Not the eight that he had originally planned, because the jealous Grim Reaper took him away on the eve of his speech to Harvard, leaving only lovers of literature around the world with infinite regret and the first draft of five speeches. Fortunately, from these five speeches, the reader can still clearly feel the lively character and rich and broad literary knowledge of Calvino, an Italian writer who is loved by modern readers.

Itaro Calvino died on the eve of his departure for Harvard University, where he was supposed to give the 1985-1986 Charles Elliott Norton Lecture. By nature, he was always reluctant to talk about himself, but he was interested in talking about the development of literature. In the preparation of his speech – which his wife recalled "haunting" the last year of his life – he inevitably referred to his own work, his methods, intentions and hopes.

In this way, the book becomes Calvino's legacy: the universal literary standards that he pointed out to future generations to be valued also become the code for us to enter Calvino's own world.

What issues should be taken into account in writing? Calvino, in a very concise arrangement, prepared a lecture (like a memo for the reader) for each of the five indispensable literary standards. The first is "lightness," and Calvino cites Luke Caixiu, Ovid, Boccaccio, Cavalcanti, Leopati, and Kundera—and a number of other writers—all used to show what he meant:

If you want to show the weight of survival, you should show it lightly. Another necessary literary criterion is "swiftness", a kind of agility that connects action (symbolized by Mercury, the angelist of the gods) and contemplation (symbolized by the god Kronoson). The next one is "accurate", the precision and clarity of the language.

The fourth lecture is "visibility", visual imagery as a means of understanding the world and itself. Then there's the ingenious "complexity," in which Calvino brilliantly describes literary eccentrics (Flaubert, Gada, Mushir, Perak, and himself) and their attempts to express humanity's efforts to confront infinite possibilities that are both painful and seductive. The sixth and final lecture – planned but not yet completed – is called "Coherence."

Maybe at first we are surprised, but then we think about how Calvino will say this, and as in his other works, such thinking always leads to more thinking. Esther Calvino directed the preparations for the book's publication. She is the Argentinian-born wife of Italo Calvino and has worked as an interpreter for several international organizations.

Harvard University Press, 1988, first edition, translated by Patrick Kreagh.

"Literary Memos for the Future Millennium" is a book published by Liaoning Education Publishing House in 1997, and the author is Calvino. With this book, Calvino gave us the most eloquent, least defensive "literary apology" we have ever written in this century – and it is also a fitting gift for the next millennium.