Restless Nights: Selected Stories

Buzzati is a brilliantly inventive existential fantasist who fills his tales with fascinating, often disquieting characters and events, and his use of fantasy distinguishes him as an important modern writer in that genre. Even though he seems to lead us into strange worlds far removed from our daily lives, his technique is really to expose the fantastic element that lurks beneath the surface. He chose as his subjects many of the ideas and developments that have shaped twentieth-century life since the Second World War, producing a body of fiction that is intimately linked to our times. Relating the most incredible incidents as if they were ordinary occurrences, he persuades us that they could in fact happen outside the printed page. Just as we gradually come to accept the bizarre goings-on in Kafka's work, Buzzati compels us to suspend our disbelief by lending plausibility to his fantastic stories.Contains:-The Seven Messengers-The End of the World-Appointment with Einstein-The Saucer Has Landed-The Survivor's Story-Prank-The Walls of Anagoor-Human Greatness-The Colomber-The Writer's Secret-The Bewitched Jacket-The Elevator-The Ubiquitous-The Wind-The Eiffel Tower-The Falling Girl-Quiz at the Prison-Elephantiasis-The Scandal on Via Sesostri-The Scrivners-What Will Happen on October 12th?-The Count's Wife-The Bogeyman