num_pages: 201
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 intelligence with a streetfighter'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: Italian Literature, Classics, Mystery, Italy, Short Stories, 20th Century, Literature, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Crime
ratings_count: 1090
places: Sicily
awards: awardedAt: 504950400000
name: John Florio Prize
category: Avril Bardoni
publisher: Granta Books