The wine-dark sea
"Leonardo Sciascia was an outstanding and controversial presence in twentieth-century Italian literary and intellectual life. Writing about his native Sicily and its culture of secrecy and suspicion, Sciascia matched sympathy with skepticism, unflinching intelligence with a streetfighter's intransigent poise.". "Sciasia was particularly admired for his short stories, and The Wine-Dark Sea offers what he himself considered his best work in the genre: thirteen spare and trenchant miniatures that range in subject from village idiots to mafia dons, marital spats to American dreams. Here, Sciascia confronts the contradictions - sometimes comic, sometimes deadly, and sometimes both - of Sicily's turbulent history and day-to-day life."--BOOK JACKET.