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If On a Winter's Night a Traveler is a classic postmodern novel by Italian author Italo Calvino, published in 1979. Each chapter is divided into two sections. In the first section, always in the second person ('you'), the narrative follows 'you' as 'you' tries to read the novel If On a Winter's Night a Traveler. The second section of each chapter is taken up by a new book, different each time, which 'you' is trying to read. The narrative explores the nature of art and of reading, with literary genres and ideas echoing across both sections of the chapters. For example, a discussion of detective fiction in the first section is reflected in a detective novel in the second section. Other themes include the subjectivity of meaning, and the relationship between books and reality. The Telegraph named If On a Winter's Night a Traveler 69th in a list of "100 novels everyone should read" in 2009.
