Roberto Calasso, the Italian publisher, translator and writer "whose wide-ranging works explored the evolution and mysteries of human consciousness, from the earliest myths and rituals to modern civilization," died July 28 at age 80, the New York Times reported. In 1962, when he was 21, Calasso started working at the newly formed publishing house Adelphi Edizioni, and a decade later "he became editorial director and quickly developed a reputation for his distinctive tastes and his passion for publishing underappreciated writers like Robert Walser and the German poet Gottfried Benn," the Times noted, adding that eventually he became the "president of Adelphi and helped preserve its independence when he bought a majority stake in the company himself, thwarting a sale to the Mondadori Group, a major European media company."
Calasso produced more than a dozen works over nearly five decades, including his first and only novel L'impuro folle (The Impure Fool), La rovina di Kasch (The Ruin of Kasch), Le nozze di Cadmo e Armonia (The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony), Ka (Ka: Stories of the Mind and Gods of India), La letteratura e gli dèi (Literature and the Gods), Il rosa Tiepolo (Tiepolo Pink), L'impronta dell'editore (The Art of the Publisher), Il Cacciatore Celeste (The Celestial Hunter), L'innominabile attuale (The Unnamable Present) and more. "His books are about how the anthropology of stories is universal," said Jonathan Galassi, president of Farrar Straus & Giroux, which published eight of Calasso's titles. The Book of All Books, translated by Tim Parks, will be published by FSG in November.