Leonardo Sciascia - Joseph Farrell

Sicilian novelist Leonardo Sciascia, popular world-wide for his detective stories, was several times nominated for the Nobel prize and became an instant best-seller in Germany, Scandinavia, and Spain as well as his native Italy. In this, the first critical study of his work, the respected Italianist Joseph Farrell examines the man, the writer and the politician. He shows how the darker aspects of Sicilian life and the Mafia deeply affected Sciascia's work and the moral principles of his heroes. Examining Sciascia's detective novels, he describes how the writer overturned the classical detective story format and imbued the genre, in his later work, with an almost cosmic compassion for humanity awaiting the inevitability of death. Sciascia's historical novel and novella, as well as his clever essay-investigations on themes both historical and contemporary, (a genre forged by Sciascia himself), are given full attention in this much-needed study of the important and influential Italian writer.