Al circolo "Fascio & Famiglia" di Vigata i camerati festeggiano l'entrata in guerra dell'Italia annunciata dal Duce il giorno prima, il 10 giugno del 1940. A turbare il gioioso clima di festa arriva un noto provocatore antifascista, Michele Ragusano che si è già fatto per le sue idee politiche cinque anni di confino a Lipari. Questa volta Ragusano se la prende con il "fascistissimo" novantasettenne don Manuele Persico, squadrista della prima ora, dalla lunga barba bianca chiedendogli: «Il nomi di Antonio Cannizzaro vi dice nenti?». Al che don Manuele si accascia fulminato da un infarto. Per i camerati è come se il vecchio don Emanuele fosse stato sparato dal Ragusano che viene salvato a stento dal linciaggio dagli accorsi reali carabinieri. Ragusano questa volta, accusato di omicidio preterintenzionale, sarà condannato alla reclusione per quindici anni nel carcere di Ventotene. Nel frattempo il consiglio comunale di Vigata delibera la celebrazione di funerali solenni per lo squadrista don Emanuele e la concessione di una pensione privilegiata per la giovane venticinquenne vedova del martire dell'idea fascista a cui inoltre sarà intitolata una via e affissa in suo onore una targa celebrativa. Ma nella storia della vita di Manuele Prisco non tutto è chiaro come quando si scopre che nel 1862 il camerata era un "picciotto" liberato dai garibaldini dal carcere di Palermo dove era stato rinchiuso per aver preso a sassate un cannoniere dell'esercito borbonico. Lo stesso protagonista ha avuto poi dei misteriosi trascorsi a Marsiglia... Insomma la targa andrà modificata di volta in volta per adeguarla alle scoperte sulla vita di don Manuele o addirittura lasciar perdere ogni glorificazione del presunto martire?
Author
Andrea Camilleri (born september 6, 1925 in Porto Empedocle) was an Italian writer. He is considered one of the greatest Italian writers of both 20th and 21st centuries. Originally from Porto Empedocle, Sicily, Camilleri began studies at the Faculty of Literature in 1944, without concluding them, meanwhile publishing poems and short stories. Around this time he joined the Italian Communist Party. From 1948 to 1950 Camilleri studied stage and film direction at the Silvio D'Amico Academy of Dramatic Arts, and began to take on work as a director and screenwriter, directing especially plays by Pirandello and Beckett. As a matter of fact, his parents knew Pirandello and were even distant friends, as he tells in his essay on Pirandello "Biography of the changed son". His most famous works, the Montalbano series show many pirandellian elements: for example, the wild olive tree that helps Montalbano think, is on stage in his late work "The giants of the mountain" With RAI, Camilleri worked on several TV productions, such as Inspector Maigret with Gino Cervi. In 1977 he returned to the Academy of Dramatic Arts, holding the chair of Movie Direction, and occupying it for 20 years. In 1978 Camilleri wrote his first novel Il Corso Delle Cose ("The Way Things Go"). This was followed by Un Filo di Fumo ("A Thread of Smoke") in 1980. Neither of these works enjoyed any significant amount of popularity. In 1992, after a long pause of 12 years, Camilleri once more took up novel-writing. A new book, La Stagione della Caccia ("The Hunting Season") turned out to be a best-seller. In 1994 Camilleri published the first in a long series of novels: La forma dell'Acqua (The Shape of Water) featured the character of Inspector Montalbano, a fractious Sicilian detective in the police force of Vigàta, an imaginary Sicilian town. The series is written in Italian but with a substantial sprinkling of Sicilian phrases and grammar. The name Montalbano is an homage to the Spanish writer Manuel Vázquez Montalbán; the similarities between Montalban's Pepe Carvalho and Camilleri's fictional detective are remarkable. Both writers make great play of their protagonists' gastronomic preferences. This feature provides an interesting quirk which has become something of a fad among his readership even in mainland Italy. The TV adaptation of Montalbano's adventures, starring the perfectly-cast Luca Zingaretti, further increased Camilleri's popularity to such a point that in 2003 Camilleri's home town, Porto Empedocle - on which Vigàta is modelled - took the extraordinary step of changing its official denomination to that of Porto Empedocle Vigàta, no doubt with an eye to capitalising on the tourism possibilities thrown up by the author's work. In 1998 Camilleri won the Nino Martoglio International Book Award. Camilleri lived in Rome where he worked as a TV and theatre director. About 10 million copies of his novels have been sold to date, and are becoming increasingly popular in the UK and North America. In addition to the degree of popularity brought him by the novels, in recent months Andrea Camilleri has become even more of a media icon thanks to the parodies aired on an RAI radio show, where popular comedian, TV-host and impression artist Fiorello presents him as a raspy voiced, caustic character, madly in love with cigarettes and smoking (Camilleri is well-known for his love of tobacco). He received an honorary degree from University of Pisa in 2005.
