As from 30th March 2014, our book, Sicily: A Literary Guide for Travellers (9781780767949), will be available in bookshops and from online retailers like Amazon, Waterstones and Barnes and Noble. The text is a celebration of writers, past and present who have been inspired by the island, whether they were born there or have been drawn to its complexity and lifestyle from abroad.
The book is split into areas, following a largely clockwise route around the island. Each stop takes in the authors who have written about or lived in a particular area: everyone from Pindar and Cicero, through the medieval poets, to the Romantics, twentieth century novelists and today’s investigative reporters and travellers, in total over 100 writers. As Tobias Jones, the author of The Dark Heart of Italy, was kind enough to say: 'I had no idea that the cast of characters who resided on, or were inspired by, the island was so huge, or so intriguing: everything from literary A-listers to washed up wanderers. It was a wonderful read.'
Sicily is indeed rich territory for the wordsmith; it boasts two of its own Nobel laureates, Pirandello and Quasimodo and a whole series of other notables from foreign parts who have visited its shores, including Steinbeck, Capote, Lawrence, Dumas, Yeats, Borges, Cervantes and Gide. Let the lives and words of some of the greats of literature be your guide to the island.