Una storia semplice (novel)
Una storia semplice ("A Simple Story") is a short novel by Leonardo Sciascia. It was the last novel of the author to be published, shortly before his death. It is inspired by a real event, i.e. the theft of the Caravaggio "Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence", which happened in 1969. A film based on the novel was directed by Emidio Greco and released in 1991. English translations. Una storia semplice appeared as "A Straightforward Tale" in 1991, together with two other novels translated by Joseph Farrell, in the Carcanet T"he Knight and Death, & Other  Stories" volume. A slightly different edition later appeared at Harvill, "The Knight and Death: Three Novellas" (1992) and at Knopf (1992; republished by Vintage Books in 1993 as "Open Doors and Three Novellas"). The most recent edition appeared in 2003 at Granta, as part of "The Knight and Death & One Way Another" volume (republished in 2014). In 2010, a small London-based publisher, Hesperus Press, had the novel retranslated by Howard Curtis. It appeared – together with "Candido" – as "A Simple Story".