Difficult Loves (Italian: Gli amori difficili) is a 1970 short story collection by Italo Calvino. It concerns love and the difficulty of communication.

Difficult Loves
First edition
AuthorItalo Calvino
CountryItaly
LanguageItalian
Published1970 (Einaudi)
Media typePrint

Some published versions of the English translation by William Weaver omit a number of the stories, and also include other Calvino stories about the Second World War and postwar period, including those from The Crow Comes Last; some of these were translated by Archibald Colquhoun and Peggy Wright. "The Argentine Ant" and "The Cloud of Smog" (as "Smog") do not appear in this book, but rather in the translated The Watcher and Other Stories. An English translation of "The Adventure of a Skier" was published by The New Yorker in their July 3, 2017 issue.

Stories edit

Starred stories are those also included in the incomplete versions of the English translation.

Difficult Loves edit

  • The Adventure of a Soldier*
  • The Adventure of a Bandit
  • The Adventure of a Bather*
  • The Adventure of a Clerk*
  • The Adventure of a Photographer*
  • The Adventure of a Traveler*
  • The Adventure of a Reader*
  • The Adventure of a Nearsighted Man*
  • The Adventure of a Wife
  • The Adventure of Two Spouses
  • The Adventure of a Poet*
  • The Adventure of a Skier
  • The Adventure of a Motorist

Difficult Life edit

  • The Argentine Ant
  • The Cloud of Smog

Adaptations edit

The "Adventure of Two Spouses" was loosely adapted into the "Renzo and Luciana" act of Boccaccio '70; the "Adventure of a Soldier" appears as one part of L'amore difficile, a film by Nino Manfredi.