Author of the Month: Leonardo Sciascia
Selected by the Bookshop
Our author of the month for February is the Italian novelist, essayist and politician Leonardo Sciascia.
Born in Sicily in 1921, Sciascia’s work is marked above all by his virulent opposition to the island’s Mafia and its corrupting influence on the Italian state. Using the apparently simple forms of crime fiction and political thriller, Sciascia thrillingly explores the abiding themes of injustice, complicity and resistance. Several of his novels were adapted for the cinema, most notably his 1961 masterpiece Il Giorno della Civetta (The Day of the Owl), filmed by Damiano Damiani in 1968.
His books are published in English by Granta and A Sicilian Man, a new biography of Sciascia by Caroline Moorehead, is published this month by Chatto.
From the publisher:
Translated by Arthur OliverIn the piazza, a man lies dead. No one will say if they witnessed his killing. This presents a challenge to the investigating officer, a man who earnestly believes in the values of a democratic and modern…
From the publisher:
On 16 March 1978, Aldo Moro, former Italian Prime Minister, was ambushed in Rome. Within three minutes the gang killed all five members of his escort and bundled Moro into one of three getaway cars. An hour later the Red Brigades announced…
From the publisher:
Two of Sciascia's most powerful novellas published side by side: One Way or Another is a chillingly prophetic work, while in The Knight and Death a mysterious handwritten note proves fatalSecret deals, powerful men and…
From the publisher:
Here are some of Sciascia's greatest stories - brief and haunting, the realist tradition at its best. In one tale a couple of men talk, cynically yet earnestly, about the etymology of the word 'mafia' - who they are, and why their interest…
From the publisher:
Translated by N.S. ThompsonFour novellas that offer a tantalising glimpse of Sicilian life, from the 1848 revolution to the death of StalinThe expression 'Sicilian uncle' has the same sense in Italian as 'Dutch uncle' does in English, but…
From the publisher:
Corruption, sleaze and violence were woven into the fabric of twentieth-century Sicilian life, as the Mafia rose to dominance. This is the story of one man who stood in opposition.In 1986, the largest Mafia trial in Italy’s history…
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