num_pages: 224
description: Leonardo Sciascia was an outstanding and controversial presence in twentieth-century Italian literary and intellectual life. Writing about his native Sicily and its culture of secrecy and suspicion, Sciascia matched sympathy with skepticism, unflinching intellect with a street fighter's intransigent poise. Sciascia was particularly admired for his short stories, and The Wine-Dark Sea offers what he considered his best work in the genre: thirteen spare and trenchant miniatures that range in subject from village idiots to mafia dons, marital spats to American dreams. Here, in unforgettable form, Sciascia examines the contradictions—sometimes comic, sometimes deadly, and sometimes both—of Sicily's turbulent history and day-to-day life.
language: English
title: The Wine-Dark Sea
titlecomplete: The Wine-Dark Sea
genres: Fiction, Italy, Short Stories, Mystery, Literature, Classics, Novels, Historical Fiction, 20th Century, Italian Literature
ratings_count: 1093
places: Sicily
awards: awardedAt: 504950400000
name: John Florio Prize
category: Avril Bardoni
publisher: NYRB Classics