ABSTRACT

there is no doubt in my mind that one of the few living Italian novelists of the first rank writing today, perhaps the best of all, is the Sicilian Leonardo Sciascia. This statement is not so bold as it sounds. The competition has lately become weak and scarce. Most well-known contemporary Italian novelists have stopped writing serious books for a variety of reasons: some are dead (like the Piedmontese Pavese and the two Sicilians, Vittorini and Tomasi di Lampedusa) ; some alive but resting on their oars (like Silone, Moravia, Soldati, and Carlo Levi) ; or some (like Pasolini) find the movies a more rewarding and less Procustean field of activity.