Leonardo Sciascia
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Leonardo Sciascia (Racalmuto, Agrigento, January 8, 1921 - Palermo, November 20, 1989) was an Italian writer and politician. Sciascia, (pronounced Shasha), was a councillor in Sicily, a deputy in the national assembly and, later, a member of the European Parliament. Trained as a teacher, it was only later in life that he devoted himself to writing about Sicily and the Mafia.
A number of his books demonstrate how the Mafia manages to sustain itself in the face of the anomie inherent in Sicilian life: 'The Day of the Owl' and 'Equal Danger' being amongst the most powerful. His forensic analysis of the kidnapping and assassination of Aldo Moro, a prominent Christian Democrat, in his book 'The Moro Affair' is masterly. His work is intricate and displays a longing for justice attempting to show how corrupt Italian society had become and remains. His linking of politicians, intrigue, and the Mafia gave him a high profile, which was very much at odds with his private self. This accumulated in him becoming widely disliked for his criticism of Giulio Andreotti, then Prime Minister, for his lack of action towards freeing Moro and answering the demands of the Brigate Rosse (Red Brigade).
Sciascia was part of a House of Deputies investigation into Moro's kidnapping, which concluded that there was a certain amount of negligence on the part of the Christian Democrat Party in their stance that the state was bigger than a person and that they would not swap Moro for 13 political prisoners, even though Moro himself had stated that the swapping of innocent people for political prisoners was a valid option in negotiations with terrorists. However, senior members of the party conveniently forgot this stance and even went as far as to say that Moro had been drugged and tortured to utter these words.
The best of his books shows that, as in real life, there is rarely a happy ending and that there is rarely justice for the ordinary man. Prime examples of this are Equal Danger (Il Contesto), where the Police's best detective is drafted to Sicily to investigate a spate of murders of judges. Focussing on the inability of authorities to handle such investigation into the corruptions, Sciascia's hero is finally thwarted.
Sciascia wrote of his unique Sicilian experience, linking families with political parties, the treachery of alliances and allegiances and the calling of favours that resort in outcomes that are not for the benefit of society, but of those individuals who are in favour. Sciascia perhaps, in the end, wanted to prove that the corruption that was and is endemic in Italian society helps only those who are part of the secret societies and loyalties and the political classes.
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[edit] Notable Works
[edit] Detective Novels
- The Day of the Owl, Il giorno della civetta (1961)
In a small town early on a Saturday morning, a bus is about to leave the small square to go market in the next town nearby. A gun shot is heard and the figure running for the bus is shot twice in the back, with what is discovered as 'lupara' (Literally meaning wolf-shot — a sawn-off shotgun that the mafia use for their killings.)
The Captain from Parma gets on the case, ruffling feathers in his contemporaries and colleagues alike. Soon he discovers a link that doesn't stop in Sicily, but goes onwards towards Rome and the Minister Mancuso and Senator Livigno.
It seems that the man shot has been warned that he should take protection from friends, which he refuses, soon his building firm was sabotaged and he has a warning bullet fired at him. Which all leads to the calling.
Using faintly corrupt methods, Bellodi- Carabinieri Captain- traps one man and uses the names given by a dead informer to trap another, who has money staved away in many bank accounts that add up to more than his fallow fields would ever bring.
The death of an eye witness leads to the collasping of the case against all three, which sees Bellodi taken off the case and him going sick, for ignoring the crime passionel which was the obvious answer to all the deaths.
Sciascia uses this story as refutation against the Mafia and the corruption apparent to his eyes that leads all the way to Rome.
Stylistically, this is light, yet requires further readings in order to grasp each of the nuances that he employs to tell his moral tale. It is a book for the writer, those interested in crime fiction and those in political machinations. Sciascia reveals his intellect to bring out the story, not to mock the reader for not knowing.
- Equal Danger (1971)
- To Each His Own, A ciascuno il suo (1966)
In a Sicilian town, pharmacist Manno receives a letter with an anonymous death threat. At first it is believed to be a prank, but then Manno is murdered as he is hunting with a friend, doctor Roscio, who is killed too.
Professor Laurana, an old friend of Roscio, decides to investigate, starting from a phrase in Latin he had noticed on the back of the letter: Unicuique Suum (which means "to each his own").
Helped by the informations obtained from Roscio's father, from an eccentric priest and from a solitary old man, Laurana puts the pieces of the puzzle together and understands that the death threat to Manno was just a trick to deceive the police: Roscio was the real target, and the Mafia is involved in the murders, which were ordered by corrupt lawyer Rosello.
Roscio's widow, Luisa, seems willing to help Laurana, but ultimately it is revealed that she too is involved: she is Rosello's lover, and her husband was killed because he had threatened to denounce Rosello's criminal activities. Laurana, betrayed by Luisa, is kidnapped and murdered.
The epilogue is bleak and bitterly ironic, as is often the case with Sciascia's novels: in a conversation between three friends of Laurana (Luigi Corvaia, Pecorilla and Zerillo) it is revealed that they too (and, it is implied, also many others in the town) know or suspect the truth about the murders, but, unlike Laurana, they have chosen to ignore it, following the "code" of Omertà. The dialogue (and the book) famously ends with a lapidary comment made by Luigi about Laurana's brave attempt to discover the truth: "Era un cretino" (He was a fool).
- The Knight and Death, Il cavaliere e la morte (1988)
The protagonist of the novel is a cultured and tenacious detective affected by a deadly disease (which is clearly a cancer, although it is never openly stated).
The detective, whose name we never learn (he is simply called "il Vice", as "the Vice Chief of Police") investigates the murder of lawyer Sandoz. His chief believes that Sandoz has been killed by a mysterious revolutionary group, but the detective is convinced that powerful businessman Aurispa is involved in the crime, and that the phoney revolutionary group has been invented ad hoc as a scapegoat to cover up the real reasons behind the murder.
The novel is permeated by a sense of impending death, as the increasingly ill and tired "Vice" tries to unravel the mystery.
The title is a reference to the engraving Knight, Death, and the Devil by Albrecht Dürer, often observed by the "Vice" as he thinks about his imminent death.
- One Way Or Another
[edit] True Crime
- The Moro Affair, L'affaire Moro (1978)
- The Mystery Of Majorana, La scomparsa di Majorana (1975)
The book focuses on the mysterious disappearance of Italian physicist Ettore Majorana. Sciascia summarizes the results of the investigations, examines the facts and the documents concerning Majorana and suggests a theory about the scientist's fate, refusing the "suicide" hypothesis.
[edit] Short stories
- The Wine-Dark Sea, Il mare color del vino, Einaudi, Torino, (1973)
- Sicilian Uncles
[edit] Critical Essays in Italian on Sciascia works
- V. Fascia, F. Izzo, A. Maori, La memoria di carta: Bibliografia delle opere di Leonardo Sciascia, Edizioni Otto/Novecento, Milano, 1998
- V. Vecellio (a cura di), L'uomo solo: L'Affaire Moro di Leonardo Sciascia, Edizioni La Vita Felice, Milano, 2002
- V. Vecellio, Saremo perduti senza la verità, Edizioni La Vita Felice, Milano, 2003
- G. Jackson, Nel labirinto di Sciascia, Edizioni La Vita Felice, Milano, 2004
- L. Palazzolo Leonardo Sciascia deputato radicale 1979-1983, Kaos edizioni, 2004
- L. Pogliaghi (a cura di), Giustizia come ossessione: forme della giustizia nella pagina di Leonardo Sciascia, Edizioni La Vita Felice, Milano, 2005
- M. D'Alessandra e S.Salis (a cura di), Nero su giallo: Leonardo Sciascia eretico del genere poliziesco, Edizioni La Vita Felice, Milano, 2006.
[edit] External links
- [1] Friends of Leonardo Sciascia Society
