It arrived in Spain in 1981, when the echoes of the last failed coup attempt still resound in that country. Leonardo Sciasciathe author anyway, One of his most famous books, written about the darkest period of post-war Italy, his biggest drama will be the murder of the former prime minister. aldo moro. this Red Brigades They carried out the order to eliminate him, and this murder was the source of one of Sciascia’s strongest contributions to the interpretation of that ideological absurdity in which he pretended to be leftist when in reality it was a brutal re-creation of fascism.
On that visit from Sciascia, in the middle of a dinner with new acquaintances, Sicilian master whose centennial was celebrated last yearwanted Spanish authors who could be translated into their own language. A young man would win the National Composition Award that night. Fernando Savaterwhose books have not yet crossed borders. One of the diners told Sciascia that Savater would certainly make a good writer for the purpose of feeding the Italian publishing house with Spanish sap. Luckily, the young writer, who would later become the most famous philosopher among Spanish thinkers, won the National Essay Award that night.
Believing that this chance said something important, Sciascia began to procure the books of the person who would be the author of the book. childhood is saved He met Savater and eventually published it at his publishing house. seller Introduction to Ethics, what was this Herral Trial Award. Savater is a hero today in Italy, Mexico, France, Argentina, wherever you want to learn about philosophy written in that language, and saw him for the first time in Sciascia.
Sciascia did everything in the Sicilian publishing house Sellerio, to which he devoted his taste and intelligence. Among the Spaniards he had and was also friends with were: Manuel Vazquez Montalban. His passion for discovering the talents of others (it is not uncommon for one writer to deal with another) was one of the Sicilian master’s greatest virtues, and plaques belonging to some of Sellerio’s friends left him. Patent the power of his literary taste embodied in the cards he makes to highlight the merits of what he chooses..
The Spanish people now have the opportunity to get acquainted with these jewels presented to the likes of Leonardo Sciascia. Libros del Kultrum publishing house has released an unmissable book for book lovers from cover to last page, in which the editors usually tell what they are about and what the works they present are like. Although they are all anonymous, These critical and explanatory notes are marked by Sciascia, who never bargained to criticize or praise his readings, whether for Sellerio or not.
The edition of this unique book (Leonardo Sciascia, writer and editor. The happiness of making a book He took charge of the Italian writer and professor. Salvatore Silvano NigroIt has a foreword by Giovanna Giordano Translated into Spanish by Celia Filipetto. just as gabriel ferrater in Spain who wrote such texts for Six of the Carlos BarralSciascia was describing his impressions for an audience that was as interested in these texts as in the books that carried them on the back page. He never signed these reviews, which he wrote and rewrote. (The print bears witness to these erasures), but one glance was all it took to realize that this essential man in 20th-century Italian history put his reading acumen there.
WhatWhy was Sciascia so generous?Why are you so committed to the culture of reading what belongs to others? We asked the editor of this selection, now appearing in Spain, over the phone. Salvatore Silvano Negri, a master in Dante, Manzoni, Bassani or Lampedusa, “Leonardo a man endowed with great humanity; kind and generous. So, besides being a great writer, he sought Sellerio in the books he would later choose. He also maintained relationships with other publishers and agents, which he marked to compete in Sellerio, an editorial genre.
Sciascia was a polemicist like his friend Pier Paolo Passolini. That’s why Leonardo chose books based on his political and cultural battles.” -Salvatore Silvano Nigro
According to Negri, Sciascia “chosen the books according to a precise process, which also pertains to his mode of existence. Like his friend, he was argumentative. Pier Paolo Pasolini. That’s why Leonardo chose books based on his political and cultural battles. In this way, the books chosen in a certain way became part of a project similar to the project that revives their own literature”.
Among the many names he chose for Sellerio, in this list of titles that appear in the Spanish edition of the book, and the way he reads them, he places them on their covers, Oscar Wilde, Stendhal, Alberto Moravia, Hector Bianciotti, Benedetto Croce, Bernardino de Sahagun, Gesualdo Bufallino, Mary McCarthyin addition to his own books, sometimes published with his own anonymous reviews, some of them, such as the book he dedicates to the journal’s edition. Moro case, For example, it was the ironies about those who ran before they finished reading this book to say it was good.
Negri points out the freedom of Sciascia to choose one or the other. Like Passolini, “Leonardo was a very generous man as a reader. Both acknowledged the diversity of the writing, they were aware that writing could be different from their own and could have literary value. for example, Sciascia recognized. It was quite objective in that respect.”
To arrive at this selection of Sciascia most dedicated to the work of others, Negri had a purpose in mind: “To reconstruct Leonardo’s work as an exercise of gratitude to Sellerio and to clarify that this publishing company also identifies with Sciascia. He was the soul of the publishing house. So what he did there is also a tribute to the role Sellerio plays in the context of contemporary culture in Italy”. Spain was also his literary center “from his youth”, and this is reflected in the Spanish-language books he has chosen, such as those already mentioned by Savater and Vázquez Montalbán. His travels to Spain (as he did when he became interested in the youngest of our philosophers in the early 1980s) were a tribute to the Unamuno footprint (one of his greatest references), which he followed passionately.
And who was the great Italian reference for Sciascia? “Italo Calvino. I liked it. He was a great friend of hers. He considered him one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. He gave it to Calvino to read before publishing any of his own books. Another reference was Passolini, as he put it, but there was some distrust of him, because at the time this dear friend was overly attached to the realities of those years. In any case, she admired him, was his friend; they moved away and then they got closer again”.
Sciascia loved a craft publishing house. Publishers today are the industry. He liked publishers led by writers. It is the administrators who govern everything published today” -Salvatore Silvano Nigro
Sciascia is gone, his legacy remains, among his books and selections there is the trail of the great Sicilian author. How is the Italian publishing industry now, Salvatore? “Since then, everything in that industry has changed a lot. Sciascia loved a craft publishing house. Publishers today are the industry. He liked publishers led by writers. today managers those who manage everything that is published. It happened everywhere. Also in Italy. It is published a lot in Italy. Publishers have no time to set a line, no search, no time to think of new literary ideas: they publish everything, especially books for immediate consumption. A book published in Italy today can spend a week in a bookstore. Then it is swept away by constant innovations that share the same fate.
We told Salvatore Silvano Negri that he seemed to be talking about Spain. Or rather, all over the world.