A Sicilian Man : Leonardo Sciascia, the Rise of the Mafia and the Struggle for Italy’s Soul

Corruption, sleaze and violence were woven into the fabric of 20th-century Sicilian life, as the Mafia rose to dominance; this is the story of the one man who stood in opposition. In 1986, the largest Mafia trial in Italy’s history took place in Sicily. The maxi-processo saw 462 men and 4 women take the stand, accused of kidnapping, extortion, drug trafficking and thousands upon thousands of murders. Sitting in the galley was Leonardo Sciascia, then aged 65. One of the greatest European writers of the 20th century, he had published the only fictional account of the Mafia, The Day of the Owl, in 1961, and was widely seen by Italians as the one true moral figure in a county where corruption had seeped into every corner of public and private life. Sciascia was born in 1921 and came of age alongside the then-adolescent Mafia. Following the First World War, Sicily faced extreme poverty and hardship, and many Sicilians did not recognise Rome’s leadership, leaving a void local gangsters would soon fill. Witnessing the spread of corruption and violence in his own hometown, Sciascia predicted it would soon spread north, and he was right: by the 1980s, the Mafia had infiltrated every level of Italian politics and grown into an international, highly successful business. In A Sicilian Man, prize-winning historian and biographer Caroline Moorehead charts Sciascia’s life against the rise of the Mafia, and lays out the thrilling and devastating struggle that ensued for Italy’s soul.