RED FACES IN POLAND?

From red faces in Napoli earlier this week to red faces in Poland - or at least, there ought to be some!  The publishers of a new Polish guidebook to the island have caused much offence to all decent Sicilians by including the Mafia bosses Bernardo Provenzano and Salvatore [Totò] Riina in a section entitled "Eminent Sicilians", reports La Sicilia.

Whatever were the authors thinking of? How did the editors, employees of a publishing house in the city of Gliwice, let this pass? Right there, on the same page as the entry on the author Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa is a long entry on Provenzano and Riina appears alongside the Modican Nobel laureate Salvatore Quasimodo. Do the compilers really imagine that the island counts these criminals among its greatest citizens?  Furthermore, do they think people want to come here to follow their trail? What about Sicily's creativity, cuisine, history and outstanding beauty? One can only hope that Poles reading this guidebook have the sense to throw it into the nearest bin, where it belongs.

In the next few days there is to be a conference on Sicilian tourism in Taormina and among the delegates will be the Sicilian Region's Councillor for Tourism, Michela Stancheris.  You can bet that this book will be on the agenda!