Vividly capturing the heat, sounds and smells of southern Italy, Conversations in Sicily astounds with its modernity, lyricism and originality

"Vittorini is one of the very best...I care very much about his ability to being rain with him when he comes, if the earth is dry and that is what you need." Ernest Hemingway

Vividly capturing the heat, sounds and smells of southern Italy, Conversations in Sicily astounds with its modernity, lyricism and originality.

"Timeless...It is very hard to give any adequate sense of [its] power" Michael Dibdin, Guardian

"The book-Guernica. One of the great, unique books of our literature" Italo Calvino

"A valuable, lyrical snapshot of a country succumbing to fascism" Nick Johnstone, Uncut

Translated from the Italian by Alane Salerno Mason

Cover photograph (c) James Hutcheson
Canongate

Vividly capturing the heat, sounds and smells of southern Italy, Conversations in Sicily astounds with its modernity, lyricism and originality.

Driven by a sense of total disconnection, the narrator embarks on a journey from northern Italy to Sicily, the home he has not seen in some fifteen years. Through the conversations of the islanders and a reunion with his mother, he gradually begins to feel reconnected. But to what kind of world? Written during Mussolini's time in power, Conversations in Sicily is one of the great novels of anti-fascism.