“Murder in Sicily: Commissario Montalbano Talks About His Author’s Literary Traditions”
in: Differences, deceits, and desires. Murder and mayhem in Italian crime fiction
ed. by Cicioni, Mirna
Impressum: Newark : Univ. of Delaware Press : 2008 : 228 S.
ISBN: 978-0-87413-051-5

In recent years one of the most successful authors in Italy has been the Sicilian storyteller Andrea Camilleri. Born in 1925, he reached Italian bestseller lists only in the mid ’90s with his series of crime novels featuring the enigmatic Commissario Montalba-no. Camilleri, a theater director now in his early eighties, who turned into an author –someone who uses an invented language made up of half Italian and half Sicilian –, has managed to capture an audience in all age brackets and beyond the confines of. Italy. He does this in two ways—through the setting of his plots and the unique language he employs.

Camilleri uses his native island – more specifically, his hometown Port Empedocle, a small town just outside of Agrigento – as the setting for his mysteries. The language he uses is full of Sicilian phrases, proverbs, dialect. His “sicilitudine” follows in the tradition of two other great Italian writers: Luigi Pirandello, a relative on his mother’s side, and Leonardo Sciascia, who although his contemporary, reached popularity already in the mid-60’s. Not only does Camilleri freely acknowledge his literary and artistic debts to Sciascia and Pirandello in interviews, but he also does so through his Commissario in his books.