The Lives of the Gods

A selection of Savinio's early stories, many of which appeared in Surrealist magazines in the thirties. Savinio was the brother of the artist Giorgio de Chirico and an associate of Apollinaire.

The moments of personal mythology we create from the apprehensions and misapprehensions of everyday waking life are captured with bizarre charm and delicacy in this collection of stories from an author who is rapidly being recognised as one of the stars of the pre-war Italian literature. the collection is united by a common theme — the re-telling of the most famous stories of all time.

"The whole of the modern myth still in process of formation is founded on two bodies of work — Alberto Savinio's and his brother Giorgio de Chirico's — that are almost indistinguishable in spirit and that reached their zenith on the eve of the war of 1914." — André Breton, Anthology of Black Humour