Thomas Beller reads Niccolo Tucci's "The Evolution of Knowledge," and discusses it with The New Yorker's fiction editor, Deborah Treisman. "The Evolution of Knowledge" was published in the April 12, 1947, issue of The New Yorker and can be found in "The Rain Came Last & Other Stories." Thomas Beller is the author of "How to Be a Man: Scenes from a Protracted Boyhood."
This is the New Yorker fiction podcast from the New Yorker magazine.
I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at the New Yorker.
Each month we invite a writer to choose a story from the magazine's archives to read and discuss.
This month, we're going to hear the evolution of knowledge by Niccolo Tucci.
My wife observed that our lot had not improved much with exile in Italy.
The tyrant had been constantly awake over us.
Here he was asleep under our feet.
The story was chosen by Thomas Beller, several of whose stories and talk of the town pieces have appeared in the New Yorker.
He's the author of the story collection seduction theory, the novel the Sleepover Artist, and a book of essays titled how to be a scenes from a protracted boyhood.
He was also the editor of Open City and is the creator of the website Mister Beller's neighborhood.
Hi, Tom.
Deborah, nice to see you.
So the evolution of Knowledge was Niccolo Tuccis first piece in the New Yorker, published here in 1947, and he went on contributing to the magazine until the seventies.
He died in 1999.
Did you ever get to meet him in person?
No.
So how did you come across his work?
In the best sense?
Someone gave me a book, which is the rain came last in other stories, which this story appears in, and I responded to the book.
I loved the story collection by accident.