"As for Calvino, I have to say honestly that I love especially his earlier work, his stories, his fiction up to and including Invisible Cities—a very beautiful book which I adore. I love less what came after Invisible Cities. The more recent work seems to me too cerebral. But then, that’s just my personal preference, and it is hard to convince readers about what is most authentic in someone’s work. Recently a book by Calvino was published posthumously, a book called La Strada di San Giovanni. In this book there is a beautiful story—the title story, in fact—which is a sort of memoir written in 1965 or so—which he never thought to publish. And there are other wonderful pieces in that collection."
January 1, 1970
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Italo_Calvino