'This feels like the book [Moorehead] was destined to write' LUCY HUGHES-HALLETT 'Magnificent
and deeply affecting' PHILIP HENSHER Corruption sleaze and violence were woven into the
fabric of twentieth-century Sicilian life as the Mafia rose to dominance this is the story of
one man who stood in opposition. In 1986 the largest Mafia trial in Italy's history took
place in Sicily. The maxi-processo saw 471 men and 4 women take the stand accused of
kidnapping extortion drug trafficking and many thousands of murders. Sitting in the galley
was Leonardo Sciascia then aged sixty-five. One of the greatest European writers of the
twentieth century he had published the first Mafia novel The Day of the Owl in 1961 and
was widely seen by Italians as a true moral figure in a country where corruption had seeped
into every corner of public and private life. Sciascia was born in 1921 and came of age as the
Mafia grew to prominence across Sicily. Widespread poverty and hardship following the First
World War meant that many Sicilians no longer recognised Rome's leadership which had left a
void for local gangsters to fill. Witnessing the scale of corruption and violence Sciascia
predicted it would soon spread north and he was right: by the 1980s the Mafia had infiltrated
every level of Italian politics and grown into an international highly successful business.
In A Sicilian Man prize-winning historian and biographer Caroline Moorehead charts Sciascia's
life against the rise of the Mafia and lays out the thrilling and devastating struggle that
ensued for Italy's soul.
