Bibliogr. s. 186-187

The paper briefly presents the main stages of the development of the Triestine literary tradition, which phenomenon begins to be widely noticed already in the 1930s. At that time, the first generation of a new Triestine literature (with its main pioneers – Italo Svevo, Scipio Slataper, Umberto Saba) became an interesting object of study for those critics and scholars who were able to distinguish some of its essential features. Subsequently, the author focuses on the idea of Triestine identity presented by a contemporary Italian writer Claudio Magris in a book entitled Trieste. Un’identità di frontiera. Then, the author proposes her interpretation of Magris’ novel Microcosms, presenting it as the most significant attempt of expressing both writer’s and city’s Triestine identity; a portrayal of the city of paper re-written in the language and style of an essayistic, autobiographical novel.