In Italy Online - Our Heritage - Books About Sicily

Orlando offers a different perspective on the Mafia than authorities like Pino Arlacchi and Nicola Tranfaglia. Born into an aristocratic Palermo family, he joined a small, honest faction of the corrupt Christian Democratic Party and became mayor of Palermo with over 75% of the popular vote in 1993. Cogently, dispassionately and engagingly, Orlando (no longer mayor of Palermo)

analyzes the Mafia's decades-long reign. Equally important, he recounts the struggle to preserve the civic life of a great European metropolis. The Mafia has benefited from a perverse claim of being an "honored society," yet Orlando exposes a starkly different reality. The "Sack of Palermo," in which Mafia-controlled construction companies destroyed the city's architectural and cultural legacy by covering it in cement and shoddy construction, was the most visible Mafia transgression. More perniciously, with its enormous drug-trade profits and its ability to deliver votes, the Mafia became an alternative to legitimate government and, eventually, intrinsic to the ruling Christian Democratic oligarchy. Orlando was close to many illustrious persons who died fighting the Mafia, and he was marked to share their fate until a crime lord realized that Sicily, Italy and the world were outraged over the murders of politicians. By demonstrating the Mafia's power, such killings generally destabilized the national government, but finally the authorities cracked down effectively. Giulio Andreotti, seven times prime minister, was implicated in protecting the Mafia in exchange for votes, but Orlando skims over this episode. He cites the 1997 reopening of Palermo's Teatro Massimo ("temporarily" closed in 1974 for repairs costing millions of dollars that went directly to the Mafia) as a sign that the city, free of the corrupt power structure, is enjoying a renaissance.

David Hume, who wrote Towns of the Renaissance, and his wife Cathy have continued their adventures in Italy with several extensive circuits of the fabled three-cornered island of Sicily. Like most Americans, they were at first a bit intimidated by Sicily's reputation for lawlessness and organized crime. But they persisted and found a land that is hospitable to tourists and well set up to take care of them.

Readers of this delightfully anecdotal travelogue will learn about Sicily's enormous repository of history and encounter amazing works of medieval art, Baroque architecture and the best monuments of the civilization of classical Greece to be found standing today. Beyond that, the food is robust, delicious and inexpensive, and the Sicilians are cheerfully eager to accommodate American tourists.

Many Beautiful Things: Stories and Recipes from Polizzi Generosa
by Santo Lipani (Illustrator), Vincent Schiavelli

As a popular character actor, Vincent Schiavelli's face is easily recognizable. But you'll look at this actor--and serious cook--in a new light once you lose yourself in Many Beautiful Things, a compilation of personal stories, with more than 75 recipes, about his visits to a small hilltop town in Sicily called Polizzi Generosa, the birthplace of his grandparents. Schiavelli is embraced as a long-lost by the Polizzani, and they readily share their local legends, town gossip, and the trials and tribulations of living in a place far removed from the rest of Italy. As a result, when he introduces us to the quirky characters who populate the village he does it with a rare sensitivity, and real respect. You'll cry for Turiddu Lavanca, the lovesick forager; laugh with Za Momo, a friend's grandmother; and wish you could taste something, anything, made by Pino Agliata, Schiavelli's favorite pastry chef.

In Polizzi, life revolves around the table, and as Schiavelli tells us, "culinary expertise is divided into ... those who cook and eat, and those who don't cook but still eat heartily." As Schiavelli weaves his tales, slipping in mouth-watering descriptions of dishes like Potato Gratin with Bay Leaves, Zucchini Flowers Stuffed with Bechamel, and Pumpkin Caponata, and sweets such as Almond Love Bites and Almond Nougat, you'll find yourself skipping to the end of each chapter to make sure the recipes are there. Take this book to read on vacation, and then find a place for it in your kitchen.

Barely five months after the earthshaking events of Sept. 11, 2001, "at a time when the world never seemed more chaotic, more savage, more precious, or more fragile," the New York-based writer Francine Prose felt that the place in the world she most wanted to visit was Sicily. Having been there once before, Prose saw this ancient volcanic island, the scene of so much mythology, history, fertility, beauty, violence and strife, as "a place where the most lush magnificence, the most sybaritic pleasures console us for -- without ever lying about -- the harshness of existence." Novelist and essayist Prose has long taken a keen interest in art, architecture, photography and cultural history. Not surprisingly, she proves to be a particularly knowledgeable and enthusiastic guide to Sicily.

She begins by plunging us into its mythic past: Sicily is where Odysseus was shipwrecked and rescued by the king's daughter, Nausicaa; where lovely Persephone, daughter of the fertility goddess Demeter, was carried off by the lord of the underworld, Pluto; and where the archetypal inventor Daedalus landed after losing his son Icarus, who fell to his death from flying too close to the sun. Homer called it the Island of the Sun. In many ways, Prose notes, Sicily's long (post-mythological) history is a history of being conquered: by Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Goths, Vandals, Byzantines, Saracens, Normans, Swabians, the Spanish and the French, "all of whom would inflict great losses and bestow even greater gifts on the conquered country." Life here, Prose feels, is marked by a resilience that enables people to find joy and pleasure amid pain and tragedy.

In some of the towns she visits, the people are warm, friendly, helpful, informative; in other towns, the visitor is made to feel the object of a silent yet menacingly palpable hostility. "But if I were asked to pick one constant, one quality that seems dependable, immutable, endlessly available, I'd say that it was intensity. For nothing in Sicily seems withheld, done halfway, restrained or suppressed." Prose, however, is well aware of the danger of "being too thoroughly beguiled by the island's scenic wonders, too easily charmed and deceived by its romantic allure." This is the perennial problem that besets both casual tourist and seasoned traveler: One's impressions may not be reliable indications of truth because it is all too easy to mistake surfaces for depths. In Prose's case, this pitfall is generally avoided. Although hardly a travel writer on the level of Jan Morris, V.S. Naipaul or Paul Theroux, let alone Rebecca West, Prose is certainly more knowledgeable and more perceptive than many who venture into this deceptively easy-seeming field.

Visiting the Villa Romana del Casale, a 4th century Roman mansion replete with elaborate mosaics depicting the luxurious (indeed, uncannily Southern Californian) lifestyle of its owners, Prose aptly describes it as "the product of a culture that was blissfully unable to see the writing on the wall. Unlike the Norman palaces scattered throughout most of the island, thickly walled structures that reflect the concerns of a society based on ... the continual need for protection and fortification, the Roman villa gives no indication that its inhabitants believed they would be called up to do much more than take hot and cold baths, rub themselves (or have themselves rubbed, by servants) with perfumed oils, exercise, play games, listen to music, have love affairs, hunt, and fish." This was the life "which they believed would continue uninterrupted despite the fact that the empire was already showing fault lines.... "

Prose also displays a feel for the way that the past shapes life in present-day Sicily. In some of the smaller, less frequently visited towns, she senses a strong sense of community: Not only do the townsfolk all seem to know one another's business, but they also seem to know a lot about their collective past: "You need only ask a simple question about a building, a painting, an archaeological site, a historical incident, and the person you asked will smile, light up, and launch into a long, animated explanation. People seem delighted to tell you the history of a place, a history to which they feel intimately connected."

But there are other small towns, particularly in the island's interior, where Prose experiences something very different: "Everyone [here] knows everyone else -- and no one knows you. No one wants to know you. And the same goes for your car.... Perhaps it's just frustration and paranoia, but after a while it seems that they're looking at us ... and it's not exactly friendly.... " From the robust, satisfying flavors of a Sicilian meal to the potent allure of a 5th century Greek statue of a beautiful young man, Prose vividly conveys the island's strong appeal. Oddly, however, especially in considering its troubled history, she does not seem to take into account the fact that for so much of that history, Sicily (unlike Athens, for instance) was ruled by kings and tyrants. (LA Times Review)

Blood Washes Blood: A True Story of Love, Murder, and Redemption Under the Sicilian Sun
by Frank Viviano

In a land steeped in family tradition, the rootless Viviano (a foreign correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle) looks to uncover a family secret: how his great-great-grandfather, a man mysteriously known as "the Monk," was gunned down at a crossroads in rural Sicily more than a century earlier, the victim of an ordered hit. In search of answers, Viviano travels to his ancestral village of Terrasini. He soon discovers that when it comes to the island's history, there are always two competing versions of the truth: "one lies in the official past, the other in the folk memory and its poetic reincarnation in fable." His book echoes this sentiment as he intersperses the rather linear account of his investigation with a fictional re-creation of events supported by his findings. Each complements the other, and the book is further enriched as, over the course of his clearly weighty research, Viviano shares a portrait of Sicily and its inhabitants. Of particular interest and, as it turns out, importance are his discoveries about the origin of what has become most strongly associated with the island: the mafia, or sistema del potere. Viviano is clearly fascinated by it, but his own experiences with carnage as a reporter keep him well clear of any Hollywood glorification. Rather, he traces its evolution as a brutal yet organic power structure in a land traditionally ruled by outsiders. Viviano's conclusions seem both well reasoned and enticing, as do the results of his inquiry into the story of his great-great-grandfather, a search that comes to a particularly satisfying surprise ending. And while, in its purest form, the book is a solid piece of storytelling and reporting, its greatest strength may be that while it begins as a personal search, it ultimately reveals the history of a people. Viviano's unsentimental but poignant close-up of one Sicilian family and the role of the Mafia how it began and how different it has become will appeal to fans of the equally unsentimental but courageous TV program The Sopranos. His five-city author tour is sure to garner critical and popular attention.

The Normans in Sicily: The Normans in the South 1016-1130 and the Kingdom in the Sun 1130-1194
by John Julius Norwich

In 1016, a rebel Lombard lord appealed to a group of pilgrims for help-and unwittingly set in motion "the other Norman Conquest." The Normans in the South is the epic story of the House of Hauteville: of Robert Guiscard, perhaps the most extraordinary European adventurer between Caesar and Napoleon; his brother Roger, who helped him win Sicily from the Saracens; and his nephew Roger II, crowned at Palermo in 1130. The Kingdom in the Sun vividly evokes this "sad, superb, half-forgotten kingdom, cultivated, cosmopolitan, and tolerant," which lasted a mere 64 years. It concludes with the poignant defeat of the bastard King Tancred in 1194, bringing to a close this extraordinary chapter in Italian history. With a comprehensive listing of all of Sicily's surviving Norman monuments, the result is a superb traveler's companion and a masterpiece of the historian's art.

Following the success of Portrait of Venice and Palaces of Rome, this beautiful book tours the palaces, villas, and castles of Sicily. From the ancient Roman villa of Piazza Armerina through the Arab castles, baroque masterpieces such as Villa Pallagonia, to the art-nouveau Villa Bordonaro alle Croci- these pages reveal 30 public and private dwellings built and furnished by Italy's greatest architects and artists over the centuries. Luxuriant gardens full of flowers and statues, antique tapestries, glorious frescoed, and priceless furniture appear in hundreds of full-color photographs. History, art and anecdote intertwine in the text for an enchanting view of Sicily's great heritage.

This oversize hardcover book with dust jacket has beautiful, thought provoking photos of many Sicilian towns, including 10 of Partinico and 1 of Isnello and many of Palermo etc. The 8 1/2 X 11 (approx) photos are in black & white, all with titles. It's a great book for any Sicilophile or person interested in photography.

Genesis of Noto: An Eighteenth Century Sicilian City (Studies in Architecture, Vol 21)
by Stephen Tobriner

Described as the perfect Baroque city, the southeastern Sicilian city of Noto was totally destroyed by an earthquake in 1693 and then rebuilt by ambitious citizens eager to match Italian achievements. The Genesis of Noto traces the complex history of Noto's foundation and growth as a grid- planned Renaissance-Baroque utopia.

Giacomo Serpotta and the Stuccatori of Palermo, 1560-1790 (Zwemmer Studies in Architecture, Vol 21)
by Donald Garstang, David Garstang, Alastair Laing (Editor), John Harris (Editor)

If it's true, as the Sicilian writer Leonardo Sciascia once said, that Sicily is a metaphor for the modern world, then author Robb has plumbed the depths of the world. Midnight in Sicily is a work from another age and era. Perhaps only in the 18th and 19th centuries would a foreigner have attempted to write about art, food, history, travel, and the Mafia together. But it soon becomes apparent that in the hands of Robb the landscape of Sicily becomes a metaphor for its history; history is inextricably tied to food; food is inseparable from art. Again, it takes a foreigner to see Italy and Sicily in clearer terms than the Sicilians and Italians themselves. The heart of darkness in this tale is Giulio Andreotti, the most powerful politician in postwar Italy: seven-time prime minister and once hailed as the greatest political mind since Bismarck. Ironically, Andreotti is a Roman who sold his soul in Sicily in a Faustian bargain to secure a political power base from which to rule Italy practically undisturbed for decades. Robb, who has written for the Times Literary Supplement and the London Review of Books, masterfully recreates scenes as benevolent as friends enjoying a meal or as diabolical as Andreotti's meeting with the most brutal crime boss in all of Italy. There are shrewd insights ("Beyond a certain threshold, power erases embarrassment"); telling phrases (Andreotti, leader of the Christian Democrats, is called a "sacristy rat"); and deep political/historical revelations (such as Cosa Nostra's permanent aim of eliminating the historic memory built up by those few who've understood that Cosa Nostra was a state within a state). A barbecue becomes an occasion for a learned excursus on the history of the fork. This narrative is itself an eclectic and sumptuous meal that -- through no fault of the author's -- leaves the diner with a bitter taste in the mouth.

A mattanza, in Italian, is a slaughter--in the instance Theresa Maggio relates, a springtime slaughter of bluefin tuna, the fish highly prized by sports fishermen and gourmands. In these elegant pages, Maggio describes the hard lives of Sicilian fishermen who chase the bluefin, reenacting a hunt that extends far back into prehistory and whose rituals, including that ceremonial massacre, have gone essentially unchanged for thousands of years.

Maggio, a former science writer at the Los Alamos National Scientific Laboratory, first traveled to her ancestral island in her early 30s. On the rocky coast of Favignana she witnessed her first mattanza, an unexpected "font of primal energy, beauty, and suffering, all in a tiny square of sea." After observing the coordinated efforts of the fishermen, who battled to drive the three-quarter-ton fish into a carefully constructed maze of net traps, Maggio came to develop an appreciation for the hunt in Sicilian village life. It is a ritual as laden with meaning as the buffalo hunt in Plains Indian cultures.

The Stone Boudoir, Travel through Hidden Villages of Sicily
By Theresa Maggio

I was hooked from the opening lines: "I was on a mission: to find the smallest mountain towns in Sicily. Tiny jewels, remote and isolated, these are places tourists seldom see. But they are the island's hidden treasure and the secret spring of Sicilian endurance."

So begins a journey that New Jersey native Teresa Maggio took in order to understand the land of her grandparents. She traveled by bus, train and car to mountain-top towns throughout several Sicilian provinces, towns that I felt I visited right along side her. No detail is ignored as she paints a remarkable and candid picture of the people she meets: including bagpipers, farmers, housewives, school teachers, nuns and an old man on a mule who I'll long remember. Their thoughts, their way of life, their traditions, their endurance, their foods and their beliefs are captured in the pages. Likewise, the towns became familiar as I followed her from place to place, inhaling the ambiance of each town: Santa Margherita Belice, Polizzi Generosa, Zafferana Etnea, Castiglione di Sicilia, Geraci Siculo, and the stone-clad towns surrounding Mt. Etna all became breathtakingly alive. Her vivid and painstaking description of February's Festa di Sant'Agata in Catania takes you right into the streets with the thousands of devotees as they honor their beloved girl-saint, shouting "Viva Sant'Agata! O! Sant' Agata, la gloria!". I could almost hear their raised voices.

This is no ordinary travel book, not the journey of a tourist with 2 weeks away from the office. In fact, in most of these towns the "tourists" are the people who left Sicily to live and work in other parts of Italy or Europe, and who come home to visit in August. Teresa lived in most of the towns she visited, renting apartments or rooms with families, even a room in a cloistered convent and a remarkable stay in a cave; the time she spends living with her distant relatives are the most telling, and I absorbed the descriptions of their way of life and daily routines like a parched sponge. The simplicity of their lives, the frugality of their ways, their innate need to put on a 'bella figura' - so much was familiar to me, reminiscent of my own Sicilian grandparents and relatives. Long-forgotten memories were resurrected.

As I lay in bed the night that I finished this book, the words and images reverberated in my head, making sleep difficult. I ached to see the countless photos she snapped as she trekked on. I simply wasn't ready to "leave" Sicily.

Each and every person with Sicilian ancestry should read this book - run, don't walk to add it to your library. It's a keeper.

On Persephone's Island: A Sicilian Journal
Mary Taylor Simeti arrived in Sicily in 1962 to do volunteer work. Freshly graduated from Radcliffe College after growing up in a privileged New York City family, the last thing she expected was to fall in love and marry a Sicilian.

The book recounts the events of 1983, the year Simeti turned 42. Her narrative alternates between Palermo, where her husband Tonino is a professor of agricultural economy, and the countryside of Bosco, 30 miles away, where she shoulders demanding responsibilities on the working farm that has belonged to her husband's family for three generations.

Filled with rich helpings of Sicilian history and culture with events and insight, Simeti makes observations about the complexity of changing times in a society where the persistent reliance on feudal relationships and agriculture is finally crumbling.

She describes the religious festivals at which celebrants tidy up their family tombs and make archangels dance in the village piazza. Tales like these, along with the myriad sights, flavors, and fragrances of Sicily, burst from the pages of this gem.

Simeti navigates through Sicily's history of Greek, Roman, Arab, Norman and Spanish conquests. She introduces us to a neighbor who "borrows" a tree for Christmas and returns it along with a homemade cheese.

Simeti researches and ruminates on the mythological underpinnings of the many holidays and festivals that punctuate the rhythm of Sicilian life. She focuses particularly on the Greek goddess Persephone, who held Sicily under her protection.

This is an absorbing account of a woman's love affair with a place that beckons us with sounds, tastes, colors, and myth.

Paperback: 330 pages

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The Little Jesus of Sicily
by Fortunato Pasqualino, Louise Rozier (Translator)

Translator's Review: "The Little Jesus of Sicily can be read at many different levels. On the surface it is a captivating tale. At a deeper level, it is a voyage in time, an account of life in a rural Sicilian community, a reality that has almost vanished. Pasqualino ponders the loss of customs and traditions of his native village while reflecting on the impact of industrialization and modernization on society. It is possible to discern a still deeper level--a spiritual one where Pasqualino shares his Christian beliefs without ever resorting to pious platitudes. Imagination, poetry, and faith are at the core of Pasqualino's spiritual quest as he asks simple but fundamental questions about the meaning of existence. A profound meditation on the human condition, this novel depicts in great detail the hardships and the ordinary pleasures of day-to-day life while examining the beliefs and forces that sustain people through suffering and adversity. The novel renews a tradition of literature found in works of regional and southern Italian inspiration and belongs to that category of rare books which are suited to please children and adults alike: Grimm's legends and fairy tales, La Fontaine's fables, Saint-Exupery's Little Prince, or Cervantes' Don Quixote. I decided to translate The Little Jesus of Sicily for one simple reason: I fell in love with it. I started the novel and could not put it down. I saw myself in it, I saw my child, and I saw the child who resides in all of us and longs for wonder. It was beautiful, it was funny, and it made me happy; I wanted to share this precious feeling of joy with other readers. I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed translating it."

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The Silent Duchess: A Novel
by Dacia Maraini, Elspeth Spottiswood (Translator), Dacia Mariani, Dick Kitto (Translator), Anna Camaiti Hostert (Afterword)

Dacia Maraini is something of a national treasure in Italy. The author of more than 50 books, a director of stage and screen, and an outspoken feminist, Maraini has never been afraid of controversy. The Silent Duchess won prestigious awards in Italy upon its publication there in 1990, and has since been translated into 14 languages. It tells the story of Marianna Ucria, an 18th-century noblewoman who is both deaf and mute following a mysterious childhood trauma. Though outwardly Marianna's life follows the same trajectory as most women's of her class and time--an arranged marriage and endless childbearing--her inner life is quite unique. Within the silent world she occupies, Marianna pursues a vigorous life of the mind; in fact, silence becomes a weapon she wields to defend her deepest, truest self against society's suppression of women's creativity and will. From the first, horrifying images of a child's hanging, through Marianna's forced marriage to her elderly uncle, and finally to her recollection of the trauma that scarred her, The Silent Duchess takes the reader on a remarkable journey through the mores and manners of 18th-century Sicily and into the mind of its enigmatic, courageous heroine.

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Mrs. Pollifax and the Second Thief
by Dorothy Gilman

This mystery, set in a villa outside Cefalù, is as humorous as Munthe's tale is tragic.

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A Thousand Years in Sicily:
from the Arabs to the Bourbons
by Giuseppe Quatriglio, translated by Justin Vitiello, In English.

Beginning with the Arab invasion of Sicily in 827 AD, Quatriglio passionately recounts the vicissitudes of a nation whose people, sharing one language, common traditions and customs, have always aspired to independence and self-determination. All conquerors have left traces in the character of Sicilians, but they were never able to eradicate those special qualities (Sicelitude), that unique way of being, shared by all Sicilians.

The author is a well-known Sicilian journalist and writer. He earned a degree in jurisprudence in Italy and studied at the Medill School of Journalism of Northwestern University while on a Fullbright Scholarship. During his long and illustrious career, Giuseppe Quatriglio has received numerous awards, including, the Zanotti Bianco, the Goethe, the Pitr~-Salomone. Marino, the Castiglione di Sicilia, the Solunto, and the Telamone, -- the last three for Publifoto.

Mille anni di storia-- the Italian version of the present book, A Thousand Years in Sicily: from the Arabs to the Bourbons, is perhaps Dr. Quatriglio's best-known work. It has gone through four editions in Italian and this second English edition is being published contemporaneously with a Japanese language version in Tokyo. Dr. Quatriglio's recent works include a book on count Alessandro Cagliostro, and Viaggio in Sicilia: da Ibr~ Jubair a Peyrefitte. His latest work, L 'uomo orologio, a collection of stories, won the prestigious Mondello Prize in 1996. Dr. Quatriglio lives in Palermo with his wife and daughter.

JUSTIN VITIELLO is a professor of Italian at Temple University. He has published numerous scholarly books and articles on Italian literature. He is the author of Confessions of a Joe Rock and Sicily Within and of several books of poetry, including Il carro del pesce di Vanzetti/Vanzetti's Fish Cart.

228 pages, illustrated with 52 portraits, prints, ancient maps, and engravings. Paperback.

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Bitter Almonds: Recollections & Recipes from a Sicilian Girlhood
by Maria Grammatico

Memoirs of a Sicilian woman's childhood--spent in a harsh convent where she learned to make incredible pastries--are combined with recipes, written down for the first time, for such delectable treats as biscotti, tarts, cakes, and marzipan confections.

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The Honored Society
by Norman Lewis

Norman Lewis describes how, after Mussolini came close to destroying the Mafia, the U.S. army returned them to power in 1944. Henceforth they infiltrated every aspect of Sicilian life, corrupting landowners, the police, the judiciary, and even the church. In one of the most astonishing chapters, the author tells the story of how an eighty-year-old priest, Padre Camelo, led his monks on escapades of murder and extortion, frequently using the confessional box for transmitting threats.

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Medieval Sicily
by Henry Barbera

An account of the eventful and glorious period from the Norman conquest of Sicily to the death of Frederick II, focusing on the political, military, and social events that culminated with the birth of the first absolute state. This book is concise, entertaining, and illuminating from many points of view -- a must for a lovers of Sicilian history. In English, 152 pages.

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Windings Through Sicily
by Justin Vitiello

Prof. Vitiello, building on the success of his Sicily Within, has expanded his inquiry into Sicilian matters taking his readers along on a journey of discovery....a train journey through time.....Naxos...the Disapora.....Honorable Trades.....a timeless Interlude: Waiting for Western History.

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Trade Paperback, 119 pages

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Sicilian Erotica
Introduction by Justin Vitiello, 196 pages.

Volume V of Pueti d'Arba Sicula/ Poets of Arba Sicula is an anthology of the liveliest erotic poetry ever produced in Sicily, ranging from the whispered sensuality of Giovanni Meli, to the iconoclastic bombast of Domenico Tempio and to the anti-establishment and anti-clerical satire of Giuseppe Marco Calvino, masterfully translated into English by Onat Claypole.

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The Dialect Poetry of Southern Italy
Edited by Luigi Bonaffini, 500 pages.

Professor Bonaffini has edited an anthology of the most significant and characteristic poetry produced in Southern Italy and on the Islands. The dialect selections from Latium, Abruzzo, Molise, Campania, Lucania, Calabria, Sicilia and Sardinia are translated into English and into Italian by dialect specialists. In addition, each region and poet are prefaced by critical notes highlighting trends and movements within the wide horizon of dialect poetry. This book shows readers a new world of poetry, often and wrongly ignored by main-stream criticism.

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Introduction to Sicilian Grammar
By Kirk Bonner
Edited by Gaetano Cipolla

This new book takes a fresh approach to the Sicilian language and the best way to speak it, pronounce it, and spell it. Sicilian is not a slightly different version of Italian as is widely held. It is a language as old as Italian; it has its own unique history, grammar, vocabulary, and structure. Sicilian, as a Language, has a separate history, and it evolved in parallel with Standard Italian. Both experienced different influences. For example, Sicilian has many words drawn from Greek and Arabic, and certain points of its grammar are more similar to Spanish than to Italian. To sum up, Sicilian is a distinct language from Standard Italian.

Between 1880 and about 1930, many people arrived in the United States who came from Italy. Most of these immigrants came from Sicily and Southern Italy. Very few of them spoke Standard Italian, which at that time was spoken by only a small number of Italians. Italians from Sicily and Southern Italy spoke their own languages, and the Sicilians who came to the United States spoke Sicilian. This book concentrates on Sicilian as a living language and is designed to appeal to those whose forebears came from Sicily. It is also designed to appeal to people interested in the Romance languages, and in particular the Romance languages of Italy.

Dr. Kirk Bonner has an avid interest in languages, cultural history, and the customs of various peoples. Ever since he studied Italian, he had a desire to learn the Sicilian language, and he set out to accomplish this goal. His natural interest in the language led him to discover that a really good introduction covering the principles of Sicilian did not exist for English speakers, and he set out to rectify this situation by researching and writing this book. Kirk holds a PH.D. in the History of Science from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. He conducted original historical research on the crucial work in atomic theory of the Italian scientist, Amedeo Avogadro (1776-1856), and the Sicilian scientist, Stanislao Cannizzaro (1826-1910). Kirk presently lives and works in Southern California.

Trade Paperback: 225 pages

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Malidittu la linga/Damned Language/With 2 Audio Cassettes
by Vincenzo Ancona, edited by Anna L. Chairetakis and Joseph Sciorra, translated by Gaetano Cipolla

Vicenzo Ancona is a poet who has been endowed by nature with certain gifts that facilitate his task in this world: a quick wit, an extraordinarily developed memory (Ancona can recite for hours without ever referring to a written text), and an acute sensitivity to the world around him. This 212-page bilingual volume in Sicilian and English includes two tapes of 60 minutes each of Mr. Ancona reciting his poetry in Sicilian. Paperback.

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Sicilians Wanted the Inquisition
by Calogero Messina, translated by Alexandra and Peter Dawson, In English.

CALOGERO MESSINA teaches at the University of Palermo. He is the author of a number of historical, critical and literary Works. His publications, which include Voltaire e il mondo classico (1976), Il Caso Panepinto (1977), Giordano An-salone in Sicilia (1980), Viaggio in Spagna e Portogallo dalla Sicilia (1981), Immagine della Sicilia (1983) and Sicilia e Spagna nel Settecento (1986), have been well received by Italian and foreign critics such as Virgilio Titone, Luigi Alfonsi, Giovanni Allegra, Raoul Verdi6re, Pierre Grimal and Helmut Koenigsberger. Professor Messina is a frequent contributor to prestigious international journals and is widely known for his radio and television programs.

SICILY 1780. Rumor has it that they want to abolish the Holy Inquisition. Sicilians, of every social condition, are alarmed, they protest. Petitions are sent to the King by the Archbishop of Palermo and all the Bishops of Sicily to save the Tribunal, for the good of the kingdom, the preservation of religion and of discipline and morality; petitions are sent by the Senate of Palermo and the Deputation of the Kingdom: how many people would lose their jobs! In this atmosphere three men from different parts of Sicily voice their opinions. They are living through the passage from one age to another very different one, the eclipse of Spain and the triumph of France. The Inquisition shocks nobody; there are other spectacles no less horrific than the public burnings. The accomplice is society, more inclined to watch a man being burned or a criminal being quartered than a bullfight and the sacrifice of an animal. All Sicily is the Holy Inquisition. Ladies too are proud to wear the cross of the Holy Office and they dine handsomely behind the platforms as the trials are being read. Ragamuffins squabble to enjoy the processions and the burnings and they scrounge around them and if they can, they stuff their stomachs too. These Sicilians have no scruples about being informers of the Inquisition, while they refuse to collaborate with ordinary justice. Amazement, fear, regret, when the Inquisition is indeed abolished. The mentality of the time, the language, certain behaviors, incredibly repeat themselves in our own day, as if nothing had changed in Sicily.

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Sicily: the Trampled Paradise
by Connie Mandracchia DeCaro

Glimpses into the Sicilian character and historical insights enhance understanding of the complex Sicilian saga. Includes illustrations.

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Vinissi...I'd Love to Come
by Antonino Provenzano

Embodies the best tradition of Sicilian Poetry (Sicilian/English)

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Giovanni Meli's Don Chisciotti and Sanciu Panza
introduced and translated into English Verse by GAETANO CIPOLLA
256 pages, Illustrations by G. Vesco.

This 256 page, bi-lingual volume contains a little known masterpiece of Sicilian poetry written by the most gifted poet Sicily has produced. It is not an imitation of Cervantes, indeed, it is a work that colors the Cervantian perspective with Sicilian sensibilities. It is a re-thinking of the archtypal couple of Don Quijote and Sancho Panza written in Sicilian verse and from a Sicilian point of view.

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A Lupa (Opera libretto... in Sicilian)
by Gaetano Cipolla

Trade Paperback, 40 pages.

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The Poetry of Nino Martoglio
Selections from Centona, edited, introduced and translated by Gaetano Cipolla. In English and Sicilian, 304 pages.

Nino Martoglio was a gifted playwright who single-handedly crafted the Sicilian theatre and was instrumental in coaxing Pirandello to start writing plays. He was a journalist, a pioneer movie director, and an impresario par excellance. Nino Martoglio was also a very gifted poet who embodied and expressed in his poetry the soul of the Sicilian people. In this bilingual volume, the best of Martoglio's poetry is published together with a wonderfully inventive English version written by Gaetano Cipolla.

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Moral Fables and Other Poems
by Giovanni Meli
Edited, introduced and translated by Gaetano Cipolla, 216 pages.

In this new volume, Professor Cipolla has included the fully revised texts of "Origini di lu munnu" and "Favoli morali", together with one full canto of the "Don Chisciotti & Sanchu Panzu" and a selection of Meli's most famous poems. The bi-lingual text on the same page provides the reader with the most comprehensive anthology available in English. The volume is illustrated by D. Miller, W. Ronalds and G. Vesco. This is a must for lovers of Sicilian poetry.

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