Marcovaldo, or The Seasons in the City, is a set of 20 short stories, written between 1952 and 1963, each one dedicated to a season of the year. The main character is always Marcovaldo, a very poor Charlie Chaplin-style nobody. He lives in "the" large industrial city (which is never named), with his large family, working as a loader for "the" company (also anonymous, unidentified). Marcovaldo is an exile: the life and details of the city do not catch his attention. On the contrary, he rejoices when he finds something of nature in the middle of city tar and cement, dreaming of rediscovering nature; but disappointment and poverty always win. The stories have a certain comic character, but there is a bitter melancholy throughout the book, with tones of neorealism. In the final stories, he portrays the exterior optimism expressed, and the eagerness of consumption, amid the illusion of economic growth of the 1960s.