The master's thesis discusses the motifs of reading and writing in two postmodernist works: Italo Calvino's novel If on a winter's night a traveler and Alfredo De Dominicis's novel La solitudine sonora. First, it focuses on the broader concept of the postmodern period and the stylistic tendency of postmodernism, then on the selected postmodernist works with an emphasis on the discussion of motifs of reading and writing. What follows is the discussion of the relationship between the author and reader in the selected works, mostly in connection with the need of the reader and with the risks that this need brings. Finally, it emphasises the role of the literary text and of the book in the discussed literary works. Therefore, in If on a winter’s night a traveler as well as in La solitudine sonora, the motif of the book becomes the instrument that the authors use for describing the images of various worlds, for thinking about different aspects of human existence, for sharing their own feelings and opinions, continuously oscillating between reality and fiction and looking for a genuine intimacy. In the master’s thesis, the connecting role of the book in the discussed postmodernist novels was analysed. It was also examined how the process of reading unites the main literary characters or the author, the generic reader and the reader’s character.
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