{"product_id":"the-singularity-isbn-9781681378008","title":"The Singularity","description":"\u003cb\u003eIn this prophetic allegory about artificial intelligence by a renowned figure of twentieth-century Italian literature, a modest university professor becomes involved in a remote and enigmatic project in the middle of the Cold War.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt the beginning of Dino Buzzati’s \u003ci\u003eThe Singularity\u003c\/i\u003e, Ermanno Ismani, an unassuming university professor, is summoned by the minister of defense to accept a two-year, top-secret mission at a mysterious research center, isolated from the world among forests, plunging cliffs, and high mountains. What’s he supposed to do there? Not clear. How long will he be there? No saying.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStill, Ismani takes the mystifying job and, accompanied by his no-nonsense wife, Elisa, heads to the so-called Experimental Camp of Military Zone 36, wondering whether, in the midst of the Cold War, it’s some sort of nuclear project he’s been assigned to. But no, the colleagues the couple meets on arrival assure them, it’s nothing like that. It’s much, much more powerful.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt the center of the research complex is strange, shining, at times murmurous, white wall. Behind it, a deep gorge drops away, full of wires and radio towers and mobile sensors and a host of eccentric structures. A question begins to dawn: Could this be the shape of consciousness itself? And if so, whose?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBuzzati's novella of 1960, a pioneering work of Italian science fiction, is published here in a brisk new translation by Anne Milano Appel. In it, Buzzati explores his favorite themes of love and longing while offering a startlingly prescient parable of artificial intelligence.\"Can the human soul be re-created? And if so, is it ethical to do so? Dino Buzzati asked himself these questions in 1960, when, after reading about contemporary cyber­netics, he wrote \u003ci\u003eThe Singularity\u003c\/i\u003e . . . which repurposes Buzzati’s great themes in a sci-fi setting. If you have read \u003ci\u003eThe Stronghold\u003c\/i\u003e, you will find the atmosphere familiar.\" —Gloria M. Ghioni, \u003ci\u003eCriticaletteraria\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Dino Buzzati is one of the great literary practitioners of the dark marvelous. To my mind, he constitutes one corner in the triangle of indispensable twentieth-century Italian fantasists, a status he shares with his contemporaries Italo Calvino and Tommaso Landolfi.\" —Kevin Brockmeier, \u003ci\u003eElectric Literature\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Dino Buzzati was an individualist . . . akin to Italo Calvino in his taste for the bizarre and the fairy tale.\" —N.S. Thompson, \u003ci\u003eTimes Literary Supplement\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Dino Buzzati’s 1960 science fiction novel \u003ci\u003eThe Singularity\u003c\/i\u003e—translated by Anne Milano Appel—tells the story of a scientist summoned to a mysterious research outpost. … This is another memorable entry in a stunning bibliography.” —Tobias Carroll, \u003ci\u003eReactor\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThe Singularity \u003c\/i\u003estages this complicity between science and military power, warning us against any facile belief that such knowledge can be acquired without cost or risk … Although Buzzati anticipated many of the specific threats associated with artificial intelligence, his exploration of generalized dread makes his work more relevant than ever.” —Gianna Albaum,\u003ci\u003e Reading in Translation\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Rather than a text-prediction chatbot, the AI in \u003ci\u003eThe Singularity \u003c\/i\u003ehas a soul—or at least a ‘glass egg’ approximating a soul…. Buzzati is frequently compared to Kafka, Borges, and Calvino. Like them, his novels and stories … have a fabulous quality.” —Ben Cosman, \u003ci\u003eCleveland Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A stylish, compelling little mystery…. Although it is more than six decades old, it predicts … with unsettling accuracy. Its characters are confronted by the presumptuous arrogance of men whose brilliance in engineering disguises how morally and emotionally incapable they are.” —Will Dunn, \u003ci\u003eThe New Statesman\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Singularity \u003c\/i\u003eis a slim novel of under 130 pages, but the ideas it explores spill beyond its covers and are perhaps much more relevant today than when it was originally published. — Areeb Ahmad, \u003ci\u003eStrange Horizons\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eThe Singularity is delightfully retro, calling back to the early Cold War era of secret military projects, atomic weapons, and computers that filled entire rooms and ran on punch cards. Yet Buzzati’s prescient story, told in a new translation by Anne Milano Appel, is buzzing with many issues that society still grapples with today. —Paul Scharre,\u003ci\u003e Foriegn Policy  \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eDino Buzzati \u003c\/b\u003e(1906–1972) was an  Italian journalist, artist, and author. A gifted artist as well as  writer, Buzzati was the author of five novels, including \u003ci\u003eThe Stronghold\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eA Love Affair\u003c\/i\u003e (NYRB Classics); numerous short stories  and poems; a children’s book; and a comic book, \u003ci\u003ePoem Strip \u003c\/i\u003e(NYRB Classics).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAnne Milano Appel\u003c\/b\u003e has translated nearly four dozen books from Italian into English, including Giovanni Arpino’s \u003ci\u003eScent of a Woman\u003c\/i\u003e; Pope Francis’s \u003ci\u003eGod is Young\u003c\/i\u003e; Claudio Magris’s \u003ci\u003eBlindly\u003c\/i\u003e, which won the inaugural Italian Prose in Translation Award; and, most recently, Claudia Petrucci’s \u003ci\u003eThe Performance\u003c\/i\u003e. She lives in the Bay Area.","brand":"NYRB Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302430560485,"sku":"NP9781681378008","price":15.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781681378008.jpg?v=1767741527","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-singularity-isbn-9781681378008","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}