When the moon was closer to the earth, he would - once a month, when its orbit made it possible - climb a ladder to its scaly surface. He remembers life on the nebulae when matter first began to exist, causing great confusion and destroying his grandmother's pillow. As a child, he used the curve of space to play marbles with brand-new atoms. With the rest of his family, he evolved to walk on land - only his great-uncle stubbornly remained a fish. And when the rest of the Dinosaurs died he was surprised to be greeted with gracious kindness instead of mortal fear by the new inhabitants of the Earth. This is the life of Qfwfq, the unique narrator of Italo Calvino's comic stories of the strangeness of the universe. They are extremely funny, imaginative beyond the scope of the galactic distances they conjure, beautifully written and absolutely unforgettable. This new collection is the first complete edition in English and includes seven stories never before translated.