About the book: 2004 / The works of the Italian prose writer and playwright Achille Campanile (1900–1977) are popular on the theater stage, but his paradoxical prose is known to the Russian-speaking reader only from a few stories. In 1973, Campanile was awarded the Viareggio Prize for his collection of short prose, A Guide to Conversation. Its plots cannot be called realistic, and the actions of the characters do not always obey logic and common sense. Often the motivation of his heroes cannot be called anything other than idiotic. Two of the most famous novels by this master of the absurd - for the first time in Russian.