Restlessness of imagination and intellect in a writer can damage his
standing with critics, but Sciascia's insatiable curiosity, keen
intellect, detestation of injustice wherever perpetrated have made him a
writer who could not be restricted to any one genre. His reputation has
been enhanced by his versatility, guaranteeing his place among the great
writers of the twentieth century. He remains best known, especially
outside Italy, as novelist and author of idiosyncratic detective stories
which seek to discover not only 'whodunnit' but why the crime was
committed, who profits by it, and what is the nature of collusion
between low-level criminals and seemingly respectable figures in
society. His novels, including To Each His Own and The Context, can
be enjoyed as thrillers or crime stories, but they simultaneously probe
questions of socio-political ethics. The investigation by his detectives
is not primarily directed at individual guilt but at uncovering flaws in
the very structure of society. He exposed mafia power in Sicily and
Italy, and the mafia provided the lens or metaphor behind his sceptical
view of all power. He once accused himself of not having great creative
powers, and while this judgement is highly dubious, he did not always
find fiction the most suitable vehicle for his enquiries. He devised a
new genre which corresponds to no existing category but which can be
conveniently described as the 'essay-enquiry'. The very idea of enquiry
is the central feature of his cast of mind and of his output as a whole,
fiction or non-fiction. Essay-enquiries include Death of the
Inquisitor, set in the age of the Counter-Reformation, The Stabbers,
an account of a plot in Palermo in the mid nineteenth century after
Garibaldi's landing, and The Moro Case, an investigation into the
kidnap and assassination of the politician Aldo Moro by the Red Brigades
in 1970s Italy. In addition, Sciascia was what would once have been
known as a 'man of letters', author of many essays and articles on
literature, history and politics, as well as an acerbic commentator on
current affairs, essayist, belle-lettrist and occasional poet. He
acknowledged his debt to Enlightenment thinkers and his insistence on
reason as the basis of civilisation has contributed to his fame outside
as well as inside Italy. His focal point was his native Sicily, but his
work is the product of a refined, critical spirit which is both Sicilian
and cosmopolitan, which is at home in different cultures and which
acknowledges its debt to such varied authors as Pirandello, Stendhal,
Kafka and Borges. His tenacious campaigning for truth and justice gives
him renewed importance in an age of relativist scepticism. An early
enthusiast, Gore Vidal, once wrote that "Sciascia has made out of his
curious Sicilian experience a literature that is not quite like anything
else done by a European". He himself claimed that his Sicilian
experience made him a pessimist, but his works give ground for hope.
This new volume attempts to give due attention to the totality of his
rich and varied output, to evaluate his achievement in the context of
own time and also to assess his enduring legacy. It is hoped that it
will extend the appeal of this important author to an English-speaking
audience.
