Author(s): Norman Lewis

Non-Fiction

A loving profile of an extraordinary country, based on Lewis' sixty-year-long fascination with all things Sicilian. Few places on earth have escaped the singular eye of Norman Lewis. But always, in the course of his long career, he has come back to Sicily. From his first, wartime visit - to a land untouched since the Middle Ages - through his frequent returns, he has watched the island and its people as they have changed over the years. Lewis treats us to his observations on the Mafia. We benefit from his friendships with policemen, journalists and common people. Moreover, he writes beautifully of landscape and language, of his memories of his first father-in-law (professional gambler, descendant of princes and member of the Unione Siciliana), of Sicily's changing sexual mores, of the effects of African immigration, of Palermo and its ruined palaces - and of strange superstitions, of witches and bandits and murders. Norman Lewis is the author of thirteen novels and thirteen works of non-fiction, including The Happy Ant-Heap which was published by Picador in 1999. He lives in Essex, UK. Paperback