BOOK REVIEW - "LA ZOLFATARA" BY IRENE DI LIBERTO

 THE SULPHUR MINE

At the beginning of the 20th century, in the imaginary Sicilian village of Castellatani, we meet Teresa, whose ambition is to become a school mistress. However, that is not what local tradition requires of her and she is pressurised into marrying Giovanni, a sulphur miner whom she grows to love.

We learn about local customs, the expectations that the villagers have of women and the suffering of the men and boys (the carusi) who work in the sulphur mine on the hill.

Teresa and Giovanni have two children, who grow up with more hope of fulfilling their ambitions than their parents had and eventually Teresa goes to work for a rich couple in Palermo. The contrast between the lives of rich and poor is brilliantly drawn but what was most striking for me was the very believable account of the cruelty and uncaring attitudes of the mine owner, his colleagues and enablers. 

As I come from Wales, where there have been many tragedies in the coal mining industry, this is a story that I can relate to. I literally could not put the book down, as I wanted to know what happened to Teresa and her children. There is a fair amount of Sicilian dialect in the text, but if you read Italian you will probably be able to work it out.

Now, as a language teacher, I will give you a tip: When you are reading in a foreign language, do not stop to look up words you do not know. You will need around a B2 level in the language to do this, but try to deduce meaning from the context. If you stop to look up every unfamiliar word, you will get fed up and hurl the book across the room. Please do not do that to this wonderful book! (I have studied four languages in my time on this earth, have a degree in two of them and have been a language teacher all my working life so maybe this old lady knows what she is talking about!)

La Zolfatara is the best book I have read in Italian this year and I learnt a lot about the sulphur mines. The last sulphur mine in Sicily closed in 1986.

DRAWING THE LINE

 On Friday in a shop in Modica - a chain, where I usually get good service - the shop assistants turned their attention first to a man who had arrived after me. I politely pointed this out but the young women serving and the man said he had arrived before me. I calmly said Ok, but that when the chain's head office emailed me for my opinion of my visit (as they always do) I would reply that it went badly.

In How to be Inimitable (1960) by the Hungarian author George Mikes - a book which is the forerunner of all humourous accounts of British eccentricity - he tells us, "If you want to be a true Briton, you must still be fond of queueing" and, although many things have changed in the land of my birth, I think this is still true. Therefore I wish I had thought to say that I come from a country where queue-jumping is about the most anti-social transgression you can commit so of course I would not have lied about my place in the line. In Britain murder, fraud and bank robbery are way down the list of serious crimes after queue-jumping! (Incidentally queue-jumping seems to happen a lot in perfumeries here.)

I remember that, at the beginning of my first trip to Italy (when I was 19) I had to go to a post office in order to send a telegram informing my parents of my safe arrival. (We didn't have the luxury of instant messaging and international phone calls were expensive and often took ages to connect.) There were a lot of people but nobody was queueing and no ticket system was in place, so not really knowing what to do, I just sat and watched everyone else for twenty minutes or so. Then a kindly-looking clerk beckoned me and I managed to send my telegram. Would anyone have the patience now?

My very old copy of How to be Inimitable.
 I still peruse it now and then, for the smiles.

A SAD EASTER MONDAY

 In a world that seems to be largely run by oligarchs, charlatans and megalomaniacs there are few leaders who, when they pass, receive genuine praise from other heads of state, heads of government and religious leaders of all political persuasions and faiths. Pope Francis is one who has.

Probably like most of you, I woke up to the news this morning and immediately felt a deep sadness. I am not a Catholic but I feel drawn to that faith; I am not a Protestant but must admit I used to like a good sing-song in a Protestant church now and then; I am not a believer, nor am I a non-believer but I would like to believe.

Why, then, am I saddened by the death of Pope Francis? Because I think he was a force for good in the world and I have found him a relatable figure ever since the evening he was elected Pope and came out onto the famous balcony and said, "Buonasera" to enormous cheers from the crowd. It was so simple yet so appropriate and it felt as if your neighbour was greeting you in the street. 

In January 2020, when our fears of the virus were growing, this agnostic blogger who is leaning towards Catholicism bought, on impulse, a book entitled Preghiera (Prayer), a collection of Pope Francis's thoughts on the matter. In a section called How to Pray, there is a quote from a speech he gave in 2016. He says,

Do not forget to pray. Pray in any way you can, and if you fall asleep in front of the Tabernacle, you will still be blessed. But pray.......Do not lose your closeness to and availability for others, and also, I allow myself to say to you, do not lose your sense of humour. And we will go forward!

A Pope who valued humour could not, and did not, fail to be loved.

WORLD PASTA DAY!

It's World Pasta Day and here is a photo of a wonderful dish of risotto (I know it's not officially pasta but it counts as a pasta course) which I was served in my local bar, the Cicara Caffetteria, last week - risotto with pumpkin and crispy guanciale. I loved the presentation of this dish:

The second dish I want to show you is my own pasta with pumpkin sauce. It also contains the juice and grated rind of a Sicilian orange and saffron. It's a dish I can make very quickly and quite joyously so it has become my go-to pasta dish and I always find it comforting.

In my cookbook, Cooking in Green Lemon Land, part of my introduction to the pasta and rice section reads:

Who doesn't like a bowl of pasta? It is one of the world's most comforting foods and in Italy it is served as a first course at almost every lunch table. "La pasta scola! – The pasta is draining!" is the cry that brings everyone to the table and often the aroma of ragù being prepared for lunchtime wafts through apartment buildings and along streets from as early as 8 am. In restaurants pasta is not necessarily served as a primo (first course) as many busy people at lunchtime have either pasta or a secondo (main), rather than both, but in the home it is. There is a myth abroad that Italians do not eat pasta salads or cold pasta dishes but they do, especially in summer. Bread, by the way, is not served with pasta, even when you order it as your main in a restaurant.

In "A Place Called Siracusa" I tell the story of a neighbour of mine who ignored me for over a year when I first came to Modica, until one day, when I met her on my way home for lunch, she asked me if I was about to prepare pasta. When I replied that indeed I was, she beamed and from that day she has greeted me as if I am old friend. I have no idea why she had never acknowledged me before but I think the fact that I was going to serve pasta made me a normal person in her eyes.

I do not make pasta every day or even most days but I do always look forward to it and if I feel unwell I do what Italians do and prepare myself some brodo (meat broth) to which I add the tiny pasta shapes called pastine. It instantly makes me feel better. My favourite pasta dishes? Pasta all'amatriciana, which contains hot chilli pepper and my own pasta alla zucca (pasta with pumpkin sauce) for which I include the recipe here. Oh, and practically all pasta al forno – baked pasta. Lasagne is probably the best known of these dishes outside Italy but I have included some others that I have created. One recommendation I would make if you want to cook pasta often is to invest in a pasta pan that comes with a drainer in the lid. It is much safer and it has changed my life!

So enjoy your pasta today and every day that you have it. You never know - it might change your life!

BOOKED!

Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for miseries and yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.

- Blaise Pascal

At around lunchtime yesterday, probably thinking that there was no one at home as it is still the holiday period, a burglar entered an apartment in Rome from its balcony but stopped to read a book about Greek mythology which he saw on a bedside table. The elderly owner of the apartment found him either sitting on the bed with the book, according to some reports, or on the balcony according to others. Either way, the owner raised the alarm with neighbours, who managed to stop the burglar from escaping and the police arrived quickly to arrest him.

It seems that our 38-year-old burglar, as well as being cultured, has refined tastes, as a bag full of designer clothes, possibly stolen from another apartment nearby, was found in his possession.

The title of the book?  Gli dèi alle sei - L'Iliade all'ora dell'aperitivo - The Gods at Six O'Clock - The Iliad at Apéritif Time by Giovanni Nucci.  Apparently it is a book about the Iliad from the point of view of the gods and how this ancient story might help us understand our own era.

Had our burglar read Pascal, he might have reflected before picking up the book! Let us hope that there is a library wherever he is imprisoned and that he will mend his ways for, as the French author Daniel Pennac says,

A well-chosen book can save you from anything, even yourself.

ADDIO, MAESTRO

"When writers die they become books, which is, after all, not too bad an incarnation", said Borges and it is true that we still have the works to console us. However, when a writer as great and as dear to the people of his birthplace as Andrea Camilleri dies, the feeling that something irretrievable is lost prevails and it would not be an exaggeration to say that Sicily is in mourning.

I didn't know until this morning that Andrea Camilleri had named his most famous character, il commissario Montalbano or Inspector Montalbano in English, after the Spanish writer Manuel Varques Montalbán, which I think is a nice touch. I also learned this morning - and I mention it because it makes Andrea Camilleri seem more like someone I'd have enjoyed having a coffee with - that, like me, he had been unable to get through any book by Dan Brown.

Most of us, of course, were introduced to Camilleri through the Montalbano books and TV series and I remember being in Sicily (eleven years before I settled here) when the first book featuring the gastronome detective came out. "This is by a new author", said a friend. "You might find the dialect parts difficult but try it." Now, I am not a fan of detective fiction but I think we can all admit that Montalbano is different and when the series was first shown I have to say it helped that he was played by Luca Zingaretti! 

The stories have certainly played their part in putting Sicily on the tourist map and nearly every town in this area offers versions of "Gli arancini di Montalbano" or "Montalbano's rice balls". Distrustful of food not prepared by a home cook or at least by the  restaurant owner Calogero - who shares the author's second name - Montalbano is witty and also knowledgeable about food, as are most Sicilians I know.

"Mangiarono parlando di mangiare, come sempre accade" - "They ate while talking of eating, as often happens", wrote Camilleri in La forma dell'acqua and in Sicily indeed it does.

Camilleri's sense of humour was sometimes dark, always down to earth and often ironic and, along with his defence of migrants and fearless criticisms of certain politicians, sometimes it made him enemies as well as friends, a fact that sadly became apparent when he was hospitalised in June and again today. Let us use British understatement for a moment to say that there was no love lost between Matteo Salvini and Camilleri but Salvini did have the decency to tweet a brief tribute this morning. Some of the latter's fans, unfortunately, demonstrated little of that virtue. But, as the author said,

"Un autentico cretino è difficile a trovarsi in questi tempi in cui i cretini si camuffano da intelligenti" - "A real idiot is hard to find in these times in which idiots disguise themselves as intellectuals."

The Montalbano books, set in imaginary Vigàta and filmed mostly in and around Ragusa, Punta Secca, Scicli and Modica, combine tales of the commissario's investigations with asides on Sicilian food and life, feature current events and have a cast of characters that all those who read them feel they know personally. 

I would like to add to the tributes by thanking Andrea Camilleri for bringing the place I came to love so much that I have made it my home to world attention in a positive way.

In 2017 Camilleri said of the blindness that had afflicted him in old age,

"Sono cieco, ma perdendo la vista tutti gli altri sensi si riacutizzano, vanno in soccorso. La memoria è diventata più forte, ricordo più cose di prima con molta lucidità e scrivo sempre."

"I am blind, but losing my sight made all my other senses more acute. They have come to the rescue. My memory has improved, I remember more things than before with great lucidity, and I still write."

When asked what he missed, he said,

"Mi manca la bellezza delle donne" - "I miss seeing the beauty of women."

The last Montalbano book awaits publication in a safe, where Camilleri had intended having it kept until the time was right, a decision which is now presumably in the hands of his publishers.

Camilleri recently said that he felt something approaching but didn't know what it was, adding that he liked to call it Eternity. Sì, maestro, let's call it that.

Andrea Camilleri:  6.9.1925, Porto Empedocle, Sicily - 17.7.2019, Rome

Actors' caravans for filming of Montalbano in Modica,
May 2019. The caravans are for Mimi Augello and Fazio.

18 THINGS YOU MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT PALERMO

Palermo has been selected as Italian Capital of Culture 2018 so here, in no particular order, are 18 facts - some quirky, others not so - that you may not know about the city:

1.  Its Palazzo dei Normanni was, from 1130 , the seat of the Sicilian Parliament, one of the oldest in the world. (I've met a lot of Sicilians who claim that it is, in fact, the oldest.] It now houses the Sicilian Regional Assembly.

2.  In 2016 Palermo was declared the worst city in Italy for traffic congestion.

3.  Frutti di Martorana, the marzipan "fruits" you will see everywhere in Sicily in autumn, were, according to legend, first made in The Martorana Convent in Palermo.

4.  The city's most important Arab and Norman buildings, along with the Cathedrals of Cefalù and Monreale, were collectively named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2015.

San Giovanni degli Eremiti, Palermo

5.  Palermo street food is legendary. Eat it first, then ask what's in it!

6.  The Palermo football team's badge has been ranked (by the British Daily Mail) as among the best in the world.

7.  The city has wide boulevards reminiscent of towns in France.

8.  The word for traditional Sicilian rice balls, arancini, is used in its feminine form, arancine there.

9.  The Catacombe dei Cappuccini (Capuchin Catacombs) are a very macabre, and often upsetting, sight but must be seen. I once decided to leave them till last on a school trip but my students, having been shown the Parliament, Cathedral and other beautiful buildings, were impatiently demanding, "Can we go and see the dead people now?" by mid-morning.

Me with students in Palermo, 1995

10. The city is second only to Naples for the number of coffee manufacturers that call it home (47 in 2011).

11. During the reign of Ruggero (Roger) II, Palermo was a city in which Muslims, Christians and Jews lived side by side in harmony. This was to come to an end, however, under Frederick II, who expelled the Muslims in 1224.

12.  In 1185 Roger's daughter and Frederick's mother Costanza d'Altavilla (Constance d'Hauteville) travelled to Germany to be married with the greatest dowry the world had ever seen. She gave birth to her son in the market square in Ancona on her way back to Sicily. You can read more about this extraordinary journey in a book I reviewed here. Costanza is buried in Palermo Cathedral.

13.  Palermo has a museum of traditional puppets  (opera dei pupi) where you can also see puppet shows at certain times of the year.  You can find out more about opera dei pupi in my post here.

Some of my own Sicilian puppets

14.  Traditional Sicilian carts vary, from province to province, in their design and size. Those from Palermo were squarer and wider than many of the others and were originally used for transporting grapes. This is a link to an article on Sicilian carts that I wrote for Italy Magazine in 2010.

15. Not strictly in the City of Palermo but in Palermo Province and a short bus ride away is Monreale, whose cathedral, begun in 1174, is one of the best preserved examples of Norman architecture anywhere. It contains Byzantine mosaics throughout. There are stunning views of Palermo from Monreale.

16. In 2014 the priests of Palermo Cathedral were much criticised for displaying a prominent WC sign in a side chapel there. I don't know about you, but when being a tourist I've often desperately needed the loo by the time I got to a city's cathedral!

17.  Palermo was named Panormus ("complete port" or possibly "well-protected bay") by the Greeks, This became Balarme under Arabic rule.

18.  To end on a sombre note, Palermo Airport, formerly known as Punta Raisi, was renamed in 1995 in honour of the anti-Mafia judges Paolo Borsellino and Giovanni Falcone who were both murdered in 1992, the latter along with his wife. The airport's full name is now L''aeroporto Internazionale Falcone e Borsellino di Palermo-Punta Raisi but it is usually referred to as aeroporto Falcone e Borsellino. Italy has been remembering the two judges in this, the 25th anniversary year of the stragi (massacres) of Capaci and via D'Amelio. We must not forget that all but one of their bodyguards died with them on those terrible days.

The candidates for Italian Capital of Culture 2020 are Agrigento, Catania, Messina, Noto, Ragusa and Siracusa. Guess which two I'll be rooting for!

City of Palermo
Coat of Arms

BONNE FÊTE NATIONALE 2017!

Recently I've been reminded how much France and her freedoms have meant to me by reading Sarah Bakewell's At the Existentialist Café, a history of existentialist philosophy told in an effervescent, innovative style which is hinted at in the book's subtitle,  Freedom, Being and Apricot Cocktails. I felt as if I were "meeting" all the French authors who had so influenced my youth all over again and it brought back the excitement of encountering their thought for the first time.

A detail I'd forgotten but was reminded of in the book is that the lyrics of the song below were penned by none other than "Mr Existentialism" himself, Jean-Paul Sartre. Its subject matter, with its references to executions, is hardly cheery but I remember having great fun with it celebrating Bastille Day in 1989 (the bicentenary of the French Revolution) at the school where I was then head of modern languages. I don't think my noisy teenage students' renderings of it, interspersed by my playing of all nine verses of the Marseillaise, brought my colleagues in neighbouring classrooms much joy but I have fond memories of the day, even though at the end of it I was so tired that I was rather glad there was a century to go till the next such celebration. Vive la France!

Juliette Gréco -  La rue des Blancs-Manteaux

LOOKING FOR LUIGI

Casa natale di Luigi Pirandello

As a French and Italian undergraduate back in the late sixties and early seventies, one of the authors whose work was to have a lasting effect on me was Luigi Pirandello, born 150 years ago today. Although or perhaps because his works were complex and posed questions rather than answering them, they immediately appealed to me. A recurring theme in the works of Pirandello is the nature of truth, probably most famously explored, for British and American audiences, in the play Sei personaggi in cerca d’autore (Six Characters in Search of an Author) but my favourite has always been Enrico IV (Henry IV). The title refers to Henry IV of Germany, Holy Roman Emperor and the plot centres around an actor who believes himself to be Henry in “real” life – or does he?

It is always difficult to justify a liking for authors whose political views you abhor and Pirandello, although declaring himself apolitical,  initially supported fascism.  However,  in 1927 he tore up his party membership card in front of fascist leaders and was thereafter watched closely by the régime’s police.

I knew that Pirandello had been born in the Agrigento or Girgenti countryside, but I never thought I would visit his birthplace or dreamt that Agrigento would become one of my favourite cities.

No one, then, was more surprised than me when, on a hot October day during my first visit to Sicily in 1992, I found myself standing outside the Casa Natale di Luigi Pirandello (Pirandello Birthplace) at 12.55 pm., five minutes before it was due to close. I had left Modica at 5 am in order to catch a bus to Gela, where I had despaired of the connecting bus to Agrigento ever arriving, let alone leaving. Once I arrived (late) in Agrigento, it had taken the rest of the morning to find the stop for the local bus that would take me, via a circuitous route on which it seemed to call in on every housing estate in the city's suburbs, to Luigi. I explained what had happened to the custodian and she kindly let me in and went out of her way to explain the exhibits. Then I walked down to the author’s grave under a pine tree, from which you can see the sea and, on a clear day, the coast of Africa.  Pirandello had written,

“Take my urn to Sicily and place it under a stone in the Girgenti (Agrigento) countryside, where I was born." 

I, less eloquently, said, 

“Luigi, I’ve come to see you. It’s taken me a long time and you weren’t always easy to study, nor were you easy to find today. But you taught me to look at life from many different angles and, although at times I've cursed you for it, today I'm here to thank you."

A page from my postcard album

Luigi Pirandello:  Agrigento, 28 June 1867 - Rome, 10 December 1936

"IL GATTOPARDO" TO BECOME TV SERIES

Back in 2009, in part 1 of two articles on books about Sicily for Italy Magazine, I explained how Il Gattopardo had inspired me as a teeneager and was perhaps even instrumental in eventually bringing me to Sicily. I've reread the book many times since then and I can't tell you how often I've watched Visconti's iconic film of the same title.

Il Gattopardo [The Leopard] by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa was published posthumously in 1958 and now it is to be turned into a television series. The rights have been acquired by the Italian company Indiana Productions who will work with the book's original publishers, Feltrinelli, and have the support of Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's adopted son and heir to his intellectual property.

The series will be internationally produced and will be filmed in locations mentioned in the book. Marco Cohen of Indiana Productions has said it will definitely not be a remake of the Visconti film, as that would be impossible but it will be authentic.

The production team are exploring the possibilities for an English language adaptation and the cast - top secret for the moment - will probably be international.

Carlo Feltrinelli said,

"Il Gattopardo not only put our publishing house on the map but also played an important part in the history of literature.  Today it allows us to relive a crucial moment for our identity as Italians and as Europeans. We are very happy about this new production which, nearly 60 years after the publication of the book, will help us discover the significance for our time of  Tomasi di Lampedusa's masterpiece and introduce it to a new generation."

Shooting is expected to start in Sicily in 2019.

MIMOSA AND MOTIVATION

Mimosa blossom is very much the order of the day for the festa della donna [International Women's Day] so it was nice to be presented with a sprig of it with my Sicilian orange juice in the bar this morning and lovely to receive the gift on the left from a friend:

I thought it would be appropriate, on this day, to tell you about ten Italian women who have inspired me - well, more than ten, really, as there are whole convents of nuns involved - but it started at ten!

Teresa Mattei

Firstly, if you are wondering why the mimosa is the symbol of International Women's Day in Italy, it was the idea of one Teresa Mattei , activist, partisan and one of the "mothers of the Italian Constitution".  

The other great ladies on my list come in no particular order and I make no apologies for the fact that several of them are writers. I'm just made that way.

Oriana Fallaci has fascinated me since my student days and I learnt only recently that the woman once known as "Italy's most aggessive journalist" could be just like the rest of us when she fell in love!

Elsa Morante was another writer whose work I started reading as a student and in my opinion her greatest novel remains La Storia or History. Of that other literary lady who is so popular both here and in Britain, namely signora Ferrante, I have read only one volume, so I am reserving judgement for now.  If I get hooked you'll be the first to know!

The works of Natalia Ginzburg were a comfort to me in my student days and they are a comfort to me now.

Rita Levi Montalcini, who left us almost five years ago, was a scientist and Nobel laureate who, even at the age of 100, had a special empathy with the young, whom her achievements and words continue to excite. The world is poorer without her.

Rita Levi Montalcini depicted in flower petals at the Noto Infiorata, 2011

Franca Viola

No woman living in Sicily can forget Franca Viola, whose determination not to submit to bullying changed Italian law.  She lives happily today in Alcamo.

Maria Grammatico, Ericean pastry cook who told her story to Mary Taylor Simeti in Bitter Almonds, was brought up in a convent, where she learnt to make pastries. I have yet to achieve my ambition of visiting her pastry shop in Erice.

There are still convents in Sicily where the nuns make and sell pastries to raise funds for maintenance or good causes and I'll never forget the day I bought these, through a grille, from a convent in Agrigento. You have my admiration, dear sisters:

The story of Daniela Spada is one I read recently and who could not be inspired by this lady's courage and the determination with which she fought her way back from devastating illness? I learnt so much from this book.

Artemesia Gentileschi is a woman I've admired since the first film about her came out in the 1990s. More talented than her father and brothers, if ever a woman literally suffered for her art, it was she. Artemesia continued painting, against all the odds, and was the first woman to become a member of the Florentine Accademia di Arte del Disegno.

Finally, the word pazienza is not in my vocabulary and I've often said it should be banned in Italy as it is too often used to excuse inefficiency by the very victims of that inefficiency. However, when pazienza is employed to create great or small works of art, I wish I had it so, as we are coming up to Easter, I would like to express once again my admiration for The Palm Lady.

I hope you've all had a wonderful festa della donna!

A POET, A POPE AND A PLATE

It was with great pleasure that I participated, on Saturday, in the launch of Modican poet Antonio Lonardo's 40th anniversary collection, Alla ricerca dell'Oreb, which I had translated.

Before the big event, of course, two visits were necessary - one to Giovanna Linguanti of Beauty Giò, and the other to Giorgio at Saloni di Successo:

At last, I am ready!

Alla ricerca dell'Oreb [In search of Horeb] is a collection of poems dedicated to migrants, describing their hopes, losses and heartbreak - a cause which is, as many of you will know, close to my heart. The second part of the book is dedicated to the migrants' champion, Pope Francis and I can assure you it makes for moving reading for people of all religions or none.  There are also poems dedicated to Gabriel García Márquez [born 90 years ago today] and to Mandela.

Besides reading my English versions of the poems at the launch, I spoke about the particular difficulties a translator of poetry faces and the changes necessary, especially in word order, when translating from Italian into English.  I ended by saying that, whilst very few translations ever match the beauty of the original - the linguist George Steiner said it was possible but rare - I hoped that mine had done justice to Antonio Lonardo's message.

Here are some more photos from the event:

Me with Antonio Lonardo

At the end of the evening I was delighted to receive this commemorative plate, specially commissioned by Antonio. I shall treasure it:

Thank you, Antonio and many congratulations again!

A TIMELY COLLECTION

Some years ago, I translated a collection of poetry called Il Profumo del Pensiero - The Essence of Thought for the Modican poet Antonio Lonardo. 

This year, Antonio celebrates 40 years of publishing poetry and I was delighted, in the summer, when he asked me to translate his new collection, Alla Ricerca dell'Oreb - In Search of Horeb.  Most of the poems in this new collection are on the theme of migration and the plight of migrants, a cause which, as many of you will know, is close to my heart. 

There is no good time to be forced to leave your country but the era we are living in is one of the most dangerous and precarious the world has witnessed so a collection of poems on this theme is, in my opinion, timely.

As you see from the poster above, the book launch takes place in Modica on 4th March 2017 and I shall be proud to be part of it.  

Thank you, Antonio, for giving me the opportunity to work on these poems.

SICILY SCENE'S REVIEW OF 2016

The year which drew to a close yesterday was the one in which it became clear to me that the world has learnt nothing from the tragedies and disasters of the last century. Here, a little late, is my review of it:

Ups

Most unexpectedly, falling in love again.

Spending Christmas in Norwich with the sister I have known for only two years and walking through a bauble in that fair city!

Downs

The down side of falling in love - being dumped. It is a much worse experience, I have discovered, than it was when I was young, for there are now so many places to be dumped from, such as social media.

Brexit - even more devastating.

Continuing to hear of needless migration tragedies as the world looks on and does nothing.


Recipe of the year

Of those I have invented myself, this is the one I like best.

Chicken with cedri and Prosecco

Books of the year

The two best books I read in Italian during 2016 were Pesce d'aprile and Lacrime di Sale, Dr Pietro Bartolo's account of migrant tragedies as they affect Lampedusa. I'll shortly be reviewing Lacrime di Sale on Sicily Scene.

The most interesting book I read in English in 2016 was Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Besides telling a gripping story, the book explained to me a conflict which took place during my lifetime but which I knew next to nothing about.

Film of the year

This is related to my second book choice above. It is Fuocoammare.


Italian logic prize

This goes to Rai and the Italian government for this scheme and their strange definition of the term rata [installment].  Predictably, after July consumers were required to pay not one "installment" for the TV licence fee but the remaining six in one go!


Hopes for 2017

Once again, I hope the world wakes up to the fact that we are all migrants and I want to see safe corridors for today's migrants and an end to migration tragedies. I want to hear more from the voices of peace and less from those of belligerance.

I wish you all peace, health and love, wherever you are.

Happy New Year and thank you for reading Sicily Scene!

Buon Anno e grazie di aver letto la Sicily Scene!

You can find links to all my migration posts here and to my adoption posts here.

IN HERE AGAIN!

It was with great pleasure that I received a twitter message from Susan Van Allen last night, telling me that Sicily Scene again appears in the list of online resources for the regions of Italy in the wonderful and deservedly best-selling 100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go.  This is the third edition of this much-needed guide and I suggest you all order your copies now! It would make a great Christmas present for any woman hoping or planning to travel to Italy and all the men I've shown it to are interested too.

Thank you for including Sicily Scene, Susan and thank you for a great read.

THANK YOU, MR FO

As a young Italian graduate, one of the voices that I felt spoke to my generation was that of Dario Fo - dramatist, theatre and film director, actor, writer, painter, political activist, Nobel Laureate [1997] and so much more - who died today at the age of 90.  I continued to read the work of Dario Fo and his wife, Franca Rame and it never failed to surprise me and make me think. As I've said before, the literature of the 20th century asked the questions but did not, usually, provide the answers and Dario Fo asked the questions that politicians, in particular, did not wish to hear.

A stationmaster's son from Sangiano [Varese, Lombardy], Dario Fo joined Mussolini's Repubblica Sociale Italiana army at 17, a fact that would haunt him in later life. When he did talk about it, he said that he had joined the only Italian army in which he could enlist so as not to be deported to Germany to work. There was also a theory that he joined to deflect suspicion from falling upon his family, who were partisans.

After studying at the Brera Academy in Milan, Dario Fo joined Rai as an actor and satirical scriptwriter. He and Franca Rame wrote sketches together but their material was so often criticised by the Italian equivalent of the British "establishment" that the couple abandoned television for the theatre, founding their own company. Fo's theatrical solo piece Mistero Buffo was famously declared blasphemous by the Vatican and became all the more renowned for that. Other internationally well-known pieces by Fo include Morte accidentale di un anarchico [Accidental Death of an Anarchist] and Non si paga! Non si paga! [Can't Pay, Won't Pay].

Two books by Dario Fo which I have enjoyed recently are La figlia del papa [a biography of Lucrezia Borgia] which I reviewed here and Dario e Dio, a long interview in which he expounds his ideas about God - or the lack of such a being.  I especially like a passage in which Fo says that the God of the Old Testament "demands tests of love that not even a Sicilian ... [would expect]."

To a man who never stopped fighting, questioning, campaigning, surprising and making us laugh, I would like to say, "Thank you".

Dario Fo died on the day it was announced that Bob Dylan is to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. I think he would have approved.

In this Apple advertisement from 1997, Dario Fo narrates and Bob Dylan makes an appearance among the innovative thinkers of the last century:  

Video courtesy of La Stampa

BOOK REVIEW - "PESCE D'APRILE"

Pesce d'aprile: Lo scherzo del destino che ci ha reso più forti by Daniela Spada
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The name Cesare Bocci is not a household one in English-speaking countries, but if I were to say "Mimì Augello" and post a picture of Cesare, many of you would recognise him as the actor who plays Montalbano's deputy.

It is often true that we can look at people, particularly celebrities, and think that everything must be fine in their lives but we usually have no idea what those lives are really like. Until I read an interview with Cesare Bocci and his partner Daniela Spada in an Italian TV listings magazine, I had no idea what they had been through in the last 16 years:

This part of their story begins in Rome on 1st April 2000. The day before, they had brought their newborn baby, Mia, home and today all is well until suddenly Daniela cries out that she has a terrible headache. Her condition worsens with terrifying speed and she is rushed to hospital, where the doctors are convinced that she is having a panic attack after a row with Cesare, who has to fight to get her seen by a neurologist. She has suffered a massive stroke. She lies in a coma for 20 days and when she wakes, her body has changed forever and , though she recognises Cesare as someone she loves, her memory is affected. Tragically, she cannot hold her baby daughter.

What follows is the story of Daniela's long road back, Cesare's unstinting support , the family and friends who in turn support him, his battles with hospital staff and bureaucracy alike and the bond that grows between him and his daughter. Cesare at last finds an Austrian doctor who treats Daniela as a human being first and a patient second and this proves to be the turning point. Slowly, and with great determination, Daniela is rehabilitated, not to her old life, but to a life which she can lead. There are still heartbreaking moments, such as those which describe the reactions of strangers to her disabilities or when she thinks of all the things she will never be able to do for her daughter. However,

"Never, never give up", she says, and Cesare says of her,

"Daniela taught me that, in difficult times, your uncertainties, fears and frustration can bury you or they can motivate you to start again."

Daniela Spada decided to think of sweet things so as not to think of her illness and became a cook and pastry chef. She now runs a cookery school, which she insists has the atmosphere of a welcoming family kitchen, in Rome.

This book is for anyone who has suffered, or been close to someone who has suffered, a stroke or other brain injury. It is also for everyone who has ever kept a long vigil at the bedside of a loved one, not knowing if they will wake up, or who has had to make a hospital corridor their home. It is, above all, a story of courage, determination and of course, love and so it is a book for all of us.

Note:  Pesce d'aprile = April fool

View all my reviews

"PLUS JE VOIS LES HOMMES...."

The other evening I was watching a jolly historical romp on TV, namely Versailles, whrn I turned round to find that Bertie-Pierrine had taken my copy of Nancy Mitford's The Sun King out of the bookshelf! You won't believe me but I kid you not. I've always known she can understand everything and now she has proved that she can read as well!

"Plus je vois les hommes, plus j'admire les chiens."

"The more I see of men, the more I admire dogs."

- Mme de Sévigné

A NEW "LEOPARD"?

In 2009, I wrote an article for Italy Magazine which began,

"Who really knows when a journey towards fulfilment begins? Looking back, I sometimes think that my journey towards the island of Sicily began much earlier than that first visit in October 1992. And, like most of the important events in my life, it began with a book:

I don’t know quite why, browsing in a bookshop in Pinner, North London in 1967, I picked up a paperback entitled The Leopard, a novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa......."

This is, of course, the book which inspired the famous 1963 Visconti film starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale. Who could ever forget the ballroom scene? 

Well, now it has been reported that there is going to be a remake and Miss Cardinale is not happy about it, having asked how anyone can think of making a film version of Il Gattopardo without Luchino Visconti.  However, it turns out that the remake is not going to be a remake but a film about Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's life based on David Gilmour's biography The Last Leopard [which I also mentioned in the above article]. That's all right, then ... or is it?  

The new film is the brainchild of London-based filmmaker Demian Gregory and will include parts of the novel which were left out of the original film but there is some confusion here about rights. According to Variety, Mr Gregory has obtained the adaptation rights of the original film but other reports state that it may be more difficult for him to obtain film rights for the book. Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi di Lampedusa, the author's adopted son, has confirmed that the new project is not a remake but seems to think that more time will be required to deal with the question of the book rights.

The Italian legal system is not famous for its speed so it remains to be seen whether filming will start in Palermo this year as planned.

Pazienza, Mr Gregory!

SICILY SCENE'S REVIEW OF 2015

The year that has just ended began, for me, in the worst possible way, with the loss of my darling Simi on January 8th. In the days and weeks that followed, there were several points when I thought I was going to go as well and of course, these days coming up to the anniversary of her death are also difficult.

But in February my Bertie-Pierrine, whom I love not as a substitute but in her own right, bounded into my life and we saved each other:

Other highlights of the year were visiting my new-found sister in Norwich, seeing Charles Aznavour live in concert in London and revisiting Cardiff, all of which I've written about here .

Elm Hill, Norwich, UK

It was also the year which marked the tenth anniversary of my move to Sicily and you can read about that here.

I was surprised, checking my blog stats tonight, to find that my most read blog post of 2015 was this Sabato Musicale  - I must have a lot of readers who are Annalisa fans and very welcome they are! The second most read post was the one I have linked to above about Simi's death.

My recipe of the year. among those I've created myself, is my Brit-Indian-Sicilian Shepherd's Pie:

I don't have a gadget of the year but I do have new [to me] uses for two old ones!  Both Mary Berry and Nigella suggest peeling ginger with a teaspoon in their latest books and I would like to thank them. It seems so obvious but I had never thought of it. Nigella recommends a microplane grater for grating citrus zest into dishes. I've had one for years but never realised how easy that would be!

My book of the year in English is The Dust That Falls from Dreams by Louis de Bernières and my book of the year in Italian is Giuseppino by Joe Bastianich.

Instead of the Italian logic prize this time, I am awarding an Italian scandal of scandals prize and it goes to the TV advert that horrified the nation in January because - are you ready? - it showed a MasterChef winner adding a stock cube to her caponata!  I am pleased to be able to report that this ability to be more scandalised by the use of stock cubes than by all the worst excesses of Italian politicians is alive and well, as a hapless would-be MasterChef Italia 5 contestant found out a week or so ago.  "Ci hai messo del dado?"- "You put a stock cube in?!" exclaimed a horrified Joe Bastianich and the ice-cold eyes of Chef Carlo Cracco turned icier than ever.

It was yet another sad year for migrants and tragedies have continued to happen, not only in the Mediterranean but on the land routes too. Italy's European partners continue to fail her and, consequently, all who are in need of a safe haven. You can find links to all my migration posts here.

My hopes for 2016 are a safe corridor for migrants and an end to migration tragedies. As always, I hope for peace and health for those I love and for all of you, wherever you are.

Happy New Year and thank you for reading Sicily Scene!

Buon anno e grazie di aver letto la Sicily Scene!