“A wide-ranging portrait of the Sicilian writer and his work. Sciascia did not live to see this interview-conversation published, but in private he often spoke of that ‘serious Englishman’ who took the time and trouble to visit him in Palermo.”Il Sole 24 Ore “Ian Thomson is very good at creating atmosphere and knows how to …
Ian Thomson: Una conversazione a Palermo con Leonardo Sciascia Read More »
The definitive biography of Primo Levi to mark the centenary of his birth, with a new introduction by the author. Reviews “Pacy, straight-down-the-line… coolly authoritative.”Blake Morrison “Clearly written with love, and unlikely to be surpassed.”Sunday Telegraph Introduction PRIMO LEVI Preface to the 1919-2019 centenary edition On 11 April 1987, a day of bright spring …
In January 1804 the West Indian island of Saint-Domingue became the world’s first black republic after the slaves toiling on the sugar fields rose up against their French masters and, at the end of a thirteen-year insurgency, proclaimed independence. Saint-Domingue was renamed Haiti (an aboriginal Taino-Arawak Indian word meaning “mountainous land”) and the Haitian flag …
Not all Germans were swayed by Hitler, but the majority were. Karl Braun, the fugitive Nazi doctor at the heart of Emeric Pressburger’s 1966 novel The Glass Pearls, was devoted to the furtherance of so-called “science” under the Führer. In the interests of research he cut up the brains of a number of Nazi …
The invisible man: The Glass Pearls, by Emeric Pressburger Read More »
Siena, that jewel of Tuscan cities, was the mercantile and banking centre of medieval Europe. Bankers in Pre-Renaissance Siena preened themselves on their wealth and material possession. Banking (from the Italian banco, “counter”) is an Italian invention. Yet Dante consigned money-lenders to the seventh circle of Hell, where they are made to stare for …
