I think italo calvino almost reaches greatness in many of his books. He recognises the artificial limits of storytelling in If On A Winters Night A Traveller but doesn't quite transcend those limitations itself. Cosmicomics is so close to genius in so many of the stories but too often his creativity is held down by reductive love plots, although the story about going to the moon is the most beautiful short story I have ever read.
Invisible Cities thooooo