L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, JUNE 27, 2019 www.italoamericano.org 12 L'Italo-Americano LIFE PEOPLE PLACES HERITAGE I met Andrea Camilleri twice in Milan at the Hotel Manin in the late '90s. The Sicilian literary phenome- non was not a kid at the time. He was already in his sev- enties when he created Inspector Salvo Montalbano, the main character of his humorous, color- ful and intense detective stories. Those books published by Selle- rio Editore in Palermo were making him a literary sensation. Today, the 93-year-old writer is in critical condition in a Rome hospital and his prognosis is uncertain. Camilleri was already a noted drama teacher at the Silvio D'Amico Academy of Dramatic Arts in Rome when his maze- like, bitingly satirical and charac- ter-driven detective stories took off as a huge commercial suc- cess. The author has sold an esti- mated 20 million books in Italy with his 25 Montalbano novels also translated into 30 languages. The works were turned into a TV series beginning in 1999 that was picked up in the UK, the US and Australia. Camilleri's mystery stories are only a part of his prolific work. They were and are bought on the basis of literary merit that includes the capability of shifting effortlessly from the comic to the grotesque, a wise use of Sicilian dialect as literary style, a vibrant sense of place and the well- rounded characters starting from charismatic police detective Salvo Montalbano, who always craves fish dishes. That vibrant sense of place in Camilleri mystery stories help drive deep investigation into our society and culture: The place, that 'Umbilicus Mundi', is more specifically the fictitious village of Vigata, itself based on a very true village of some 16,000 souls named Porto Empedocle. Locat- ed in the province of Agrigento, where the nearby ancient Greek Valley of Temples has inspired visitors for centuries, Porto Empedocle is Camilleri's birth- place, a settlement the writer knows right down to its dark beating heart. The Sicilian novelist con- firmed to me that the Inspector Montalbano stories are set there. "Porto Empedocle is both real and imaginary at the same time because her boundaries are vari- able due to my imagination. But to some extent, Porto Empedocle is frozen back in time in my books. It is stuck in my memo- ries: in fact, the troupe that is shooting the movies based on my stories has not chosen Marinella di Porto Empedocle as a setting because cement has buried everything," he pointed out. "They had to move to eastern Sicily, where there is still the possibility of having what I had in mind." The reality of today is more optimistic. The Porto Empedocle beach is actually beautiful enough and offers a 6 km stretch of golden sand heading to a moonscape-like bright rock for- mation called Scala dei Turchi, which is in this case pure par- adise. Over time, wind and sea spray have carved out limestone to form what look like huge steps. Porto Empedocle's ancient name was Marina di Girgenti. It was an "avant la lettre" business hub that experimented with mar- ket forces and foreign trade. The Arabs used it for military rea- sons and to export wheat, salt and wine to Africa. The parents of playwright and Nobel Laureate Luigi Pirandello were from Porto Empedocle as well. "Historical families from Porto Empedocle came originally from Malta and from Amalfi," says Calogero Conigliaro, local historian and president of Associ- azione Culturale SicilStoria. Conigliaro's WWII book I cor- sari del Terzo Reich e i segreti di Husky, Sicilia (1940-1943) is prefaced by Andrea Camilleri. Conigliaro says that the resi- dents of Porto Empedocle are hurting after hearing Camilleri's medical condition is critical. "We will be obviously pained if he dies but we remain serene as he is a great writer and great Italian. His soul is immortal. He will always exist through his books." Camilleri earned a degree in romance philology from the Uni- versity of Palermo. "I don't like to remember or evoke the univer- sity years," he told me in one of our Milanese meetings. "My dream was to become a teacher of Italian language to foreigners. Since a prestigious university degree was needed for that goal, I immediately chose the University of Florence, where famed literary critic De Robertis was teaching." And he added: "I thought I was in heaven that time!" He was supposed to attend the Faculty of Lettere (Italian Lan- guage and Literature) and take service as an apprentice journalist at La Nazione newspaper on Sep- tember 1, 1943. "But as you know, the Americans landed in Sicily on the night of 9 and 10 July 1943 and I was cut off. That is why I ended up at the Univer- sity of Palermo, which I didn't like at all and had the misfortune to run into a professor who screwed me," he said. "I had a serious fight with him, and after taking the exam with him, I scored 26, not enough to enter the public competition held by Foreign Ministry to become a language assistant at a foreign university." Camilleri started tinkering around with poems at age 10. "Years ago, the sister of a school- mate of mine who passed away called me up and said: "Hey Nene (to my friends in Porto Empedocle I am Nene), I found a poetry notebook among my brother's papers. What a gift of delight. The poetry journal is yours!" MARIELLA RADAELLI The sea of Sicily at Porto Empedocle, home of Andrea Camilleri © Thecriss | Dreamstime.com Porto Empedocle: though ailing, 93-year-old Andrea Camilleri sure to live on through Inspector Montalbano Camilleri during an interview @Associazione Amici di Piero Chiara

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