The Wine-Dark Sea

by Sciascia, Leonardo; Mobilio, Albert; Bardoni, Avril

• ISBN13: 9780940322530
• ISBN10: 0940322536
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-10-31
• Publisher: NYRB Classics

Summary

Leonardo Sciascia was an outstanding and controversial presence in twentieth-century Italian literary and intellectual life. Writing about his native Sicily and its culture of secrecy and suspicion, Sciascia matched sympathy with skepticism, unflinching intelligence with a streetfighter's intransigent poise. Sciascia was particularly admired for his short stories, and The Wine-Dark Sea offers what he considered his best work in the genre: thirteen spare and trenchant miniatures that range in subject from village idiots to mafia dons, marital spats to American dreams. Here, in unforgettable form, Sciascia examines the contradictionssometimes comic, sometimes deadly, and sometimes bothof Sicily's turbulent history and day-to-day life.

Author Biography

Leonardo Sciascia (1921-1989) was born in Racamulto, Sicily. Starting in the 1950s, he established himself in Italy as a novelist and essayist, and also as a controversial commentator on political affairs. Among his many other books are Salt on the Wound, a biography of a Sicilian town, The Council of Egypt, an historical novel, and Todo Modo, a book in a genre that Sciascia could be said to have invented: the metaphysical mystery.

Albert Mobilio is a poet and critic. His books of poetry include Bendable Siege and The Geographics, and his criticism has appeared in Harper’s, The New York Times Book Review, and The Village Voice. In 1999 he won the National Book Critics Circle award for excellence in reviewing. He teaches at The New School.

Table of Contents

Introduction	ix
The Ransom	3	(14)
The Long Crossing	17	(10)
The Wine-Dark Sea	27	(40)
The Test	67	(14)
Giufa	81	(12)
Demotion	93	(16)
Philology	109	(12)
End-Game	121	(18)
A Matter of Conscience	139	(18)
Apocryphal Correspondence re Crowley	157	(10)
Mafia Western	167	(8)
Trial by Violence	175	(16)
Euphrosyne	191	(8)
Author's Note	199