Leonardo Sciascia the Man and the Writer
Restlessness of imagination and intellect in a writer can damage his standing with critics, but Sciascia's insatiable curiosity, keen intellect, detestation of injustice wherever perpetrated have made him a writer who could not be restricted to any one genre. His reputation has been enhanced by his versatility, guaranteeing his place among the great writers of the twentieth century. He remains best known, especially outside Italy, as novelist and author of idiosyncratic detective stories which seek to discover not only 'whodunnit' but why the crime was committed, who profits by it, and what is the nature of collusion between low-level criminals and seemingly respectable figures in society. His novels, including To Each His Own and The Context, can be enjoyed as thrillers or crime stories, but they simultaneously probe questions of socio-political ethics. The investigation by his detectives is not primarily directed at individual guilt but at uncovering flaws in the very structure of society. He exposed mafia power in Sicily and Italy, and the mafia provided the lens or metaphor behind his sceptical view of all power. He once accused himself of not having great creative powers, and while this judgement is highly dubious, he did not always find fiction the most suitable vehicle for his enquiries. He devised a new genre which corresponds to no existing category but which can be conveniently described as the 'essay-enquiry'. The very idea of enquiry is the central feature of his cast of mind and of his output as a whole, fiction or non-fiction. Essay-enquiries include Death of the Inquisitor, set in the age of the Counter-Reformation, The Stabbers, an account of a plot in Palermo in the mid nineteenth century after Garibaldi's landing, and The Moro Case, an investigation into the kidnap and assassination of the politician Aldo Moro by the Red Brigades in 1970s Italy. In addition, Sciascia was what would once have been known as a 'man of letters', author of many essays and articles on literature, history and politics, as well as an acerbic commentator on current affairs, essayist, belle-lettrist and occasional poet. He acknowledged his debt to Enlightenment thinkers and his insistence on reason as the basis of civilisation has contributed to his fame outside as well as inside Italy. His focal point was his native Sicily, but his work is the product of a refined, critical spirit which is both Sicilian and cosmopolitan, which is at home in different cultures and which acknowledges its debt to such varied authors as Pirandello, Stendhal, Kafka and Borges. His tenacious campaigning for truth and justice gives him renewed importance in an age of relativist scepticism. An early enthusiast, Gore Vidal, once wrote that "Sciascia has made out of his curious Sicilian experience a literature that is not quite like anything else done by a European". He himself claimed that his Sicilian experience made him a pessimist, but his works give ground for hope. This new volume attempts to give due attention to the totality of his rich and varied output, to evaluate his achievement in the context of own time and also to assess his enduring legacy. It is hoped that it will extend the appeal of this important author to an English-speaking audience.
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Leonardo Sciascia the Man and the Writer
Restlessness of imagination and intellect in a writer can damage his standing with critics, but Sciascia's insatiable curiosity, keen intellect, detestation of injustice wherever perpetrated have made him a writer who could not be restricted to any one genre. His reputation has been enhanced by his versatility, guaranteeing his place among the great writers of the twentieth century. He remains best known, especially outside Italy, as novelist and author of idiosyncratic detective stories which seek to discover not only 'whodunnit' but why the crime was committed, who profits by it, and what is the nature of collusion between low-level criminals and seemingly respectable figures in society. His novels, including To Each His Own and The Context, can be enjoyed as thrillers or crime stories, but they simultaneously probe questions of socio-political ethics. The investigation by his detectives is not primarily directed at individual guilt but at uncovering flaws in the very structure of society. He exposed mafia power in Sicily and Italy, and the mafia provided the lens or metaphor behind his sceptical view of all power. He once accused himself of not having great creative powers, and while this judgement is highly dubious, he did not always find fiction the most suitable vehicle for his enquiries. He devised a new genre which corresponds to no existing category but which can be conveniently described as the 'essay-enquiry'. The very idea of enquiry is the central feature of his cast of mind and of his output as a whole, fiction or non-fiction. Essay-enquiries include Death of the Inquisitor, set in the age of the Counter-Reformation, The Stabbers, an account of a plot in Palermo in the mid nineteenth century after Garibaldi's landing, and The Moro Case, an investigation into the kidnap and assassination of the politician Aldo Moro by the Red Brigades in 1970s Italy. In addition, Sciascia was what would once have been known as a 'man of letters', author of many essays and articles on literature, history and politics, as well as an acerbic commentator on current affairs, essayist, belle-lettrist and occasional poet. He acknowledged his debt to Enlightenment thinkers and his insistence on reason as the basis of civilisation has contributed to his fame outside as well as inside Italy. His focal point was his native Sicily, but his work is the product of a refined, critical spirit which is both Sicilian and cosmopolitan, which is at home in different cultures and which acknowledges its debt to such varied authors as Pirandello, Stendhal, Kafka and Borges. His tenacious campaigning for truth and justice gives him renewed importance in an age of relativist scepticism. An early enthusiast, Gore Vidal, once wrote that "Sciascia has made out of his curious Sicilian experience a literature that is not quite like anything else done by a European". He himself claimed that his Sicilian experience made him a pessimist, but his works give ground for hope. This new volume attempts to give due attention to the totality of his rich and varied output, to evaluate his achievement in the context of own time and also to assess his enduring legacy. It is hoped that it will extend the appeal of this important author to an English-speaking audience.
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Leonardo Sciascia the Man and the Writer

Leonardo Sciascia the Man and the Writer

by Joseph Farrell
Leonardo Sciascia the Man and the Writer

Leonardo Sciascia the Man and the Writer

by Joseph Farrell

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Overview

Restlessness of imagination and intellect in a writer can damage his standing with critics, but Sciascia's insatiable curiosity, keen intellect, detestation of injustice wherever perpetrated have made him a writer who could not be restricted to any one genre. His reputation has been enhanced by his versatility, guaranteeing his place among the great writers of the twentieth century. He remains best known, especially outside Italy, as novelist and author of idiosyncratic detective stories which seek to discover not only 'whodunnit' but why the crime was committed, who profits by it, and what is the nature of collusion between low-level criminals and seemingly respectable figures in society. His novels, including To Each His Own and The Context, can be enjoyed as thrillers or crime stories, but they simultaneously probe questions of socio-political ethics. The investigation by his detectives is not primarily directed at individual guilt but at uncovering flaws in the very structure of society. He exposed mafia power in Sicily and Italy, and the mafia provided the lens or metaphor behind his sceptical view of all power. He once accused himself of not having great creative powers, and while this judgement is highly dubious, he did not always find fiction the most suitable vehicle for his enquiries. He devised a new genre which corresponds to no existing category but which can be conveniently described as the 'essay-enquiry'. The very idea of enquiry is the central feature of his cast of mind and of his output as a whole, fiction or non-fiction. Essay-enquiries include Death of the Inquisitor, set in the age of the Counter-Reformation, The Stabbers, an account of a plot in Palermo in the mid nineteenth century after Garibaldi's landing, and The Moro Case, an investigation into the kidnap and assassination of the politician Aldo Moro by the Red Brigades in 1970s Italy. In addition, Sciascia was what would once have been known as a 'man of letters', author of many essays and articles on literature, history and politics, as well as an acerbic commentator on current affairs, essayist, belle-lettrist and occasional poet. He acknowledged his debt to Enlightenment thinkers and his insistence on reason as the basis of civilisation has contributed to his fame outside as well as inside Italy. His focal point was his native Sicily, but his work is the product of a refined, critical spirit which is both Sicilian and cosmopolitan, which is at home in different cultures and which acknowledges its debt to such varied authors as Pirandello, Stendhal, Kafka and Borges. His tenacious campaigning for truth and justice gives him renewed importance in an age of relativist scepticism. An early enthusiast, Gore Vidal, once wrote that "Sciascia has made out of his curious Sicilian experience a literature that is not quite like anything else done by a European". He himself claimed that his Sicilian experience made him a pessimist, but his works give ground for hope. This new volume attempts to give due attention to the totality of his rich and varied output, to evaluate his achievement in the context of own time and also to assess his enduring legacy. It is hoped that it will extend the appeal of this important author to an English-speaking audience.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9788822268211
Publisher: Casa Editrice Leo S. Olschki
Publication date: 08/01/2022
Series: Sciascia scrittore europeo. Associazione Amici di Leonardo Sciascia , #5
Pages: 298
Product dimensions: 4.69(w) x 6.85(h) x (d)

About the Author

Joseph Farrell is Emeritus Professor of Italian at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. In 2005, he was given the title Cavaliere della Repubblica Italiana for his work in promoting Italian culture abroad. The history and culture of Sicily have always fascinated him, and so he was inevitably drawn to the work of Leonardo Sciascia. He has published articles on Sciascia in learned journals and newspapers, and has given talks on his works in European and American universities. He is translator of The Knight and Death and A Straightforward Tale and is currently a member of the advisory board of "Todomodo". His first book on Sciascia was published by Edinburgh University Press in 1995, and the desire to reconsider Sciascia's work in the light of the many stimulating studies published in recent years has led to the present work. Farrell's other works include: Sicily, A Cultural History; a biography of Dario Fo and Franca Rame; a study of Robert Louis Stevenson in Samoa; and in 2021 Honour and the Sword, a study of the history and culture of duelling. He has produced two book-length interviews, the first with Franca Rame and the second with Dacia Maraini. Together with Paolo Puppa, he edited the History of Italian Theatre for Cambridge University Press. He has also edited volumes of essays on Carlo Goldoni, Dario Fo, Primo Levi, Carlo Levi, Ugo Betti and the mafia. He produced critical editions in English of plays by Fo, Pirandello and Goldoni, translated three film scripts by Giuseppe Tornatore, as well as novels by Sciascia, Consolo, Del Giudice and Valerio Varesi, and plays by Fo, Goldoni and De Filippo.

Table of Contents

Introduction Foreword Chapter one - De Rebus Siculis - 1. The Enigma of Sicily - 2. Dictatorship in Fable - 3. Sicily in Verse - 4. Pirandello of Girgenti - 5. The Parishes of Regalpetra Chapter two - Tradition and the Sicilian Writer Chapter three - Civic Humanism and the Body Politic - 1. The Ethics of Politics - 2. Mafia and Anti-Mafia - 3. Judges, Justice and Judgement Chapter four - The Detective Story - 1. The Italian giallo and the Anglo-American crime story - 2. Confronting the mafia: The Day of the Owl - 3. The mafia family-state: To Each His Own - 4. The mafia as metaphor: The Context - 5. The theology of corruption: Todo modo Chapter five - History's Shadow - 1. History and the Historical Novel in Sicily - 2. The Council of Egypt Chapter six - The Play's the Thing Chapter seven - Inquisitions, Ancient and Modern - 1. The Inquisitor and the Friar - 2. The Moro Case: Politicians and Dogma? Chapter eight - Security and Civilisation - 1. The Majorana Mystery - 2. A Risorgimento Conspiracy in Sicily Chapter nine - Candido and Candour Chapter ten - Sciascia's Myths - 1. Marking time and settling accounts - 2. Late work - 3. Open Doors - 4. The Knight and Death - 5. A Simple Tale Bibliography Plates. Sciascia Englished. A Visual Journey Through Original Editions Indexes Index of names Index of works.
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