In these five refined autobiographical reflections, Italo Calvino revisits his past, recalling awkward walks with his father from his childhood, his everlasting love for cinema, and his struggle with the partisans of the Italian Resistance against the fascists.

He also ruminates on social contracts, language and culture, the feeling he experiences when collecting garbage from the kitchen bin and throwing it away, as well as the shape he believes the world would take. His reflections on the nature of memory itself are captivating, witty, and illuminated by the alchemical genius of this great writer.

In this book, an exceptionally personal work and precisely for that reason unclassifiable, all his sparkling virtues shine through, from his unconventional and analytical perspective to his narrative and essayistic prowess, his humanitarian and critical alertness. The Road to San Giovanni serves, as Cesare Garboli aptly points out in the afterword of the edition, as a "metaphor" for the entire body of Italo Calvino's literature.

“We were at the edge of the theatre of military operations of the Italian Resistance, without natural resources, allied assistance, and strong political leaders; however, it was one of the hotbeds of the most fierce and relentless struggle throughout the twenty months, and among the areas that suffered the greatest losses. I have always found it difficult to recount in the first person my memories of the resistance. I could do so according to various narrative keys, all equally true: from recalling my emotions about the relationships that were at stake, the dangers, anxieties, decisions, deaths, to conversely focusing on the heroic-comic narrative of the uncertainties, mistakes, adversities, and adventures faced by a young bourgeois, politically inexperienced and without any life experience, who until then had been living with his family.” Italo Calvino