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The Wine-Dark Sea book cover
The Wine-Dark Sea
1973
First Published
3.87
Average Rating
161
Number of Pages
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 intellect with a street fighter'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 contradictions—sometimes comic, sometimes deadly, and sometimes both—of Sicily's turbulent history and day-to-day life.
Avg Rating
3.87
Number of Ratings
1,374
5 STARS
23%
4 STARS
46%
3 STARS
26%
2 STARS
4%
1 STARS
1%
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Author

Leonardo Sciascia
Leonardo Sciascia
Author · 33 books

Leonardo Sciascia (1921-1989) wrote of his unique Sicilian experience, linking families with political parties, the treachery of alliances and allegiances, and the calling of favours that resort in outcomes that are not for the benefit of society, but of those individuals who are in favour. Sciascia perhaps, in the end, wanted to prove that the corruption that was and is endemic in Italian society helps only those who are part of the secret societies and loyalties and the political classes.

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