Book recommendation: The Path to the Spiders’ Nests

Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno or The Path to the Spiders’ Nests is a 1947 novel by Italian writer Italo Calvino. Set in World War II Italy, this coming-of-age story follows Pin, an orphan in a town on the Ligurian coast in northwest Italy. Pin spends his days at a seedy bar where he amuses the adult patrons. But after he steals a pistol from a Nazi sailor, Pin falls in with a partisan group. This story tackles complex and serious topics through the eyes of a child.

“I enjoyed this coming-of-age story because of Pin’s perspective,” says Spoleto Study Abroad board member, Anna White Hosea. “He is a child striving to make it in an adult’s world, and Pin shows up as a rascal and imp.”

Author Italo Calvino was born in Cuba in 1923 to Italian parents, who moved back to Italy when Italo was two-years-old. The Path to the Spiders’ Nests was his first novel, but Calvino would go on to write over a dozen more, along with numerous short stories. At the time of his death in 1985, Calvino was the most translated contemporary Italian writer.