Page 589 - The Rough Guide of Sicily

BOOKS

Although only a few modern writers have travelled in and written about Sicily,
the island has provided the inspiration for some great literature, by both Sicilians
and foreign visitors. Translations of Italian and Sicilian classics are also often

available at bookshops in major towns and resorts in Sicily. The best books in this
selection are marked by a symbol.

TRAVEL AND GENERAL

Vincent Cronin The Golden Honeycomb. Disguised as a quest for the mythical
golden honeycomb of Daedalus, this classic, erudite travelogue is a searching account
of a sojourn in Sicily in the 1950s.

Duncan Fallowell To Noto. Follows the author’s trip from London to Baroque Noto in
an old Ford – a witty tale, complete with pithy observations on Sicily and the

Sicilians.

Matthew Fort Sweet Honey, Bitter Lemons. Cheery food-writer Fort returns to the
island he first visited in the 1970s, only this time he comes on a Vespa and eats his
way around, from ice cream to anchovies.

Norman Lewis In Sicily. A sweeping portrait of the island which Lewis came to
know well through his wife and her family. Subjects range from reflections on

Palermo’s ruined palazzi to the impact of immigration, and there’s plenty on the
Mafia.

Daphne Phelps A House in Sicily. An Englishwoman inherits a grand palazzo in
Taormina in the late 1940s, and turns it into a guesthouse to make ends meet. Cue the
usual cultural misunderstandings while she learns to love the locals, leavened by
vignettes of her eminent guests – including Bertrand Russell, Tennessee Williams and
Roald Dahl.

Gaia Servadio Motya. On one level, an account of Phoenician history and culture as
they relate to the excavated ruins of Motya – but in truth, so much more than that, as
Servadio explores the fabric of Sicily and its people in uncompromising, enlightening
detail.

Mary Taylor Simeti On Persephone’s Island: A Sicilian Journal. Sympathetic

record of a typical year in Sicily by an American who married a Sicilian professor
and has lived in the west of the island since the early 1960s. It’s full of keenly
observed detail about flora and fauna, customs, the harvests, festivals and – above all
– the Sicilians themselves.