Sciascia e Camilleritra Racconto e Cronaca Sociale

Abstract

In “a very strange guide” of Bahia, Jorge Amado proposes a self-definition that can also be used to explain an aspect, not secondary, of the narrative work by Leonardo Sciascia and Andrea Camilleri: “They tell what they lived, the hero of their books is the people, their goal is to achieve the future”. Sciascia, to talk about his first work (which will be entitled Le parrocchie di Regalpetra), uses the term “cronaca” (that appears in the title of the chapter “Cronache scolastiche”): chronicles of a village – Regalpetra – a place the writer knows very well, in its social and historical physiognomy, which he can write about, because he lived it. Camilleri, in the same way, not only in historical, civil, and crime novels, but also in writings of minor narrative structure, when not occasional, as may be the pages that describe some aspects of Porto Empedocle, in which the author explicitly qualifies herself as a witness (“I saw from my terrace”). Both Italian writers tell what they know – each with their own narrative strategy and with their own world view – and constitute the people as the hero of their books. More complex is to say if they consider (as the Brazilian writer) that the goal to be achieved is the future, and what it would mean, for one and the other, the idea of future: which its political and social tone is, which (and several) moods compose the concept, destined to innervate vivid narrative pages.