by John Keahey
Porto Empedocle
Prandi, Paola
prehistoric people of Sicily. See indigenous people of Sicily
prickly pears
prisons, inscriptions and graffiti in
Privitera, Joseph F.
Sicilian: The Oldest Romance Language
Sicily: An Illustrated History
processions
produce, fresh
Proserpina B-and-B
protection, Mafia
Protestantism
Puccio-Den, Deborah
Shrines and Pilgrimage in the Modern World: New Itineraries into the Sacred
Puglia
Puma, Salvatore
costumes of
Punic wars
puppet shows
Racalmuto
Arab origin of name
Chiaramonte castle
Church of San Giuseppe
Church of the Santa Maria del Monte
emigrants from
festivals
Fondazione Leonardo Sciascia
history and traditions of
as subject matter of Sciascia’s books
Ragusa
Ragusan Meatballs (Purpetti di maiali)
Randazzo
Rao, Simone
Ravenna
realists, literary
Regia Strada (royal highway)
religious devotion
reporters, cynicism vs. skepticism of
restaurants
family-run
late hours of
Restivo, Renée
revolts
Rigoglioso, Marguerite
Rimi, Vincenzo
rivers
roads
Roger, Duke of Apulia
Roger I Guiscard
Roger II
Roman Catholic Church
hierarchy of
Romance languages
Roman Empire
expansion of
fall of
Romans, ancient
influence of
rule of Sicily
Rosalia, Saint
Rosenblum, Mort
Rosi, Francesco
Rossetto Kasper, Lynne, The Italian Country Table
Runciman, Steven
Sacra Corona Unità (criminal organization)
sacrifices to the gods
saint’s statue (simulacrum)
Salemi
Saline River
salt mines
Salvatore Giuliano (film)
Sand, George (Amantine Dupin)
San Giuseppe’s (Saint Joseph’s) feast day
sanitation workers
Sardinia
Sartarelli, Stephen
Satan, and sulfur
Savoy
sbirro (cop)
Scarth, Alwyn, and Jean-Claude Tanguy, Volcanoes of Europe
Schifani, Rosaria
Schneider, Jane C. and Peter T.
essay on the Mafia
Reversible Destiny: Mafia, Antimafia, and the Struggle for Palermo
Sciascia, Anna Maria
Sciascia, Laura
Sciascia, Leonardo
background of
birthplace and house of
Candido
The Council of Egypt
The Day of the Owl
death of kidney failure
Death of the Inquisitor
on food
grandfather of, worked in the sulfur mines
grave of
home town of (Racalmuto)
house and study in Noce
house and study in Palermo
influences on
inscription on plaque of
life and writing routine of
on the Mafia
museum and study center about
Salt in the Wound
on Sicilian life
Sicily as Metaphor
on the Spanish Inquisition
statue of, in Racalmuto
A Straightforward Tale
wife of (Maria Andronico)
The Wine-Dark Sea
Sciascia family, Arab origin of name
scirocco
Scopello
Baia Guidaloca
seasons
change of, and festivals
and crops
Segesta
Selinous/Selinunte/Selinus
temples at
Sellerio, Enzo, A Photographer in Sicily
separatist movement
shrug, Sicilian
Sicani
Sicels (Siculi)
Sicilian, The (film)
Sicilian dialect
differences from Italian
difficult to understand
grammar
history of
loss of
Sicilians
Cicero’s high opinion of
differences from other Italians
educated, Italian speakers
ethnic mix of
helplessness and insecurity of
national consciousness of
rigors of pre-mid-20th-century life
secretiveness of
sense of the state lacking in
separatedness of
suspiciousness of
Sicilian School of Poets
Sicilian Vespers revolt (1282)
Sicilitudine (Sicilian separatedness)
Sicily
ancient names for
archaeological discoveries
as autonomous region
beauty of, concealing hardships
as breadbasket of Rome
exploitation (colonization) of, by outsiders
exploitation by Northern Italians
geology of
Goethe’s tour of
identity of, as island nation
invaders of
modern-day prosperous and quaint look of
place names
post-Unification turmoil
poverty of, prior to mid-20th century
rule by foreigners
separatist movement
travelers’ accounts
sight-seeing, dangers of
Sigonella U.S. Naval Air Station
Simeti, Mary Taylor
On Persephone’s Island
Simon Guiscard
simulacrum. See saint’s statue
Siracusa
Athenian assault on
duomo of
Ear of Dionysius
quarry at
temple to Athena
Sirens
sirocco
skepticism
snow
Sofia, Corrado
on food
house of
soil
Soluntum
Sommatino
sonnets, invented in Sicily
Sophocles
Soul of Sicily
Spain
Arab conquest of
rule of Sicily
Spanish Inquisition
abolished by royal decree (1783)
archives of
protests against
use of witnesses and torture
verse of a victim of
Sparta
spring
Steinbeck, John
Stendhal
stigghiole (a dish)
Stille, Alexander
Excellent Cadavers
Stiolmi, Beppe
Strait of Messina
street names
sulfur mines and miners
summer
heat of
sùrfaru, simmo/sugnu (“we are just sulfur”)
Tamburri, Anthony
Tancred
Taormina
taxation
Taylor, Bayard
temples
Thapsos
Timpanelli, Gioia, Sometimes the Soul
Tinuccia (cook in Noto)
Tomasi, Giulio
tomatoes, sun-dried
torture
tourists
places where they are s
carce
tradition
traffic
Tra i frutti (B-and-B)
train travel
Tranchina, Marisin
Tranchina, Salvatore
Trapani
Treaty of Caltabellotta
Trecastagni
Trinacria
Tripoli
Triptolemus
troubadours
Truman, Harry S
Tuckerman, Henry
Tunisia
Twain, Mark
Tyrrhenian Sea
Uccello, Antonino
unemployment
Unification of Italy
U.S. Army
Vandals
Vatican
Vecchio, Angelo
Vecchio, Conchita
Verga, Giovanni
birthplace home of
“Cavalleria Rusticana”
depictions of 19th century living conditions
I Malavoglia (The House by the Medlar Tree)
Little Novels of Sicily
“Rosso malpelo”
Verlaine, Paul
Verres, Gaius
Verso, Tom, “Child Slavery in Sicily in 1910”
Vesuvius
Vicari, Salvatore
Vigo, Leonardo
Vikings
Visconti, Luchino
Vittorini, Elio
Vittorio Amadeo di Savoia
Vittorio Emanuele II
Voltaire
Vulcan
Wagner, Richard
Washington, Booker T.
The Man Farthest Down
water, bottled
wheat
William I “The Bad”
William II “The Good”
William III
wine
winter
women, surnames of
women writers
World War II
damage of
fight for Sicily
remaining vestiges of
Wright, Clifford A., A Mediterranean Feast
writers, ancient Greek
writers, Italian
writers, Sicilian
birthplace homes of
translations of
young people, employment of
Zafferana Etnea
Zancle
Zeus
Laura Sciascia, daughter of Leonardo Sciascia; Palermo. (John Keahey)
Anna Maria Sciascia, Leonardo Sciascia’s youngest daughter, and her son, Vito Catalano; Noce, Racalmuto. (John Keahey)
Francesca Corrao, Leonardo Sciascia; Gibellina, ca. 1988. (Courtesy of Francesca Corrao)
Sciascia statue; Racalmuto. (Steven R. McCurdy)
Festival for the Madonna del Monte, Racalmuto. (John Keahey)
Racalmuto. (John Keahey)
Santo Spirito, site of the start of the War of the Sicilian Vespers; Palermo. (John Keahey)
Inside Palazzo Lampedusa; Palermo. (Courtesy of architects Gabriele Graziano and Alice Franzitta)
Prisoner painting on cell wall in the Inquisitors Prison; Palermo. (Steven R. McCurdy)
Franco Bertolino, cart painter; Palermo. (Steven R. McCurdy)
Men playing scopa, Vucciria; Palermo. (Steven R. McCurdy)
Salvatore Tranchina; Scopello. (Steven R. McCurdy)
Pirandello home; Kaos. (Steven R. McCurdy)
Judge Giovanni Falcone with bodyguards; Marseilles, France, 1986, six years before his Mafia hit. (Gerard Fouet-AFP-Getty Images)
Maria Falcone, sister of Judge Falcone; Palermo. (John Keahey)
Salvatore Vicari, who played Alfio the boatboy in La terra trema; Aci Trezza (Steven R. McCurdy)
Good Friday; Enna. (Steven R. McCurdy)
PERMISSIONS
GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material, for translations of material in Sicilian, and for use of photographs:
Pantheon Books, Inc.: Excerpts from The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa, translated by Archibald Colquhoun, translation copyright © 1960 by William Collins & Co., Ltd. and Random House, Inc. Copyright renewed 1988 by William Collins PLC and Random House, Inc. Used by permission of Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa. © 1958 by Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore, reprinted electronically by permission of The Wylie Agency, LLC.
University of Pennsylvania Press: Poem from p. 117 of The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History by Maria Rosa Menocal, copyright © 1987. Reprinted with permission of the University of Pennsylvania Press.
Alissandru (Alex) Caldiero: Translations from the Sicilian of two selections from the poem “Lingua e dialettu” by Ignazio Buttitta. Translations used by permission of Alissandru (Alex) Caldiero, along with the translation of a stanza carved in stone by an anonymous carver: “U me cori/doppu tant’ anni…” (My heart/after so many years…).
Photographs: Permissions granted to use photographs by, or owned by, Steven R. McCurdy, Bradley W. Keahey, Francesca Corrao, architects Gabriele Graziano and Alice Franzitta, and Gerard Fouet-AFP-Getty Images.
ALSO BY JOHN KEAHEY
A Sweet and Glorious Land: Revisiting the Ionian Sea
Venice Against the Sea: A City Besieged
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JOHN KEAHEY is a veteran newspaper journalist and travel writer based in Salt Lake City, Utah. A native of Idaho, reared in the once-small farming community of Nampa, he first visited Sicily in 1986 and, enchanted, returned numerous times in between the reporting and writing of two other travel narratives for Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press: A Sweet and Glorious Land: Revisiting the Ionian Sea (2000) and Venice Against the Sea: A City Besieged (2002). He is married to Connie Disney, a book designer for an independent Salt Lake City–based publisher.
Note: The recipes in this book are from two sources: Renée Restivo, founder of Soul of Sicily, and Sicily: Culinary Crossroads by Giuseppe Coria. Restivo’s organization is a cultural association based in Noto, Sicily. It offers cooking programs to visitors and opens doors to the culture, art, literature, food, and wine of southeastern Sicily. Programs share local traditions and ingredients: www.soulofsicily.com. Coria (1930–2003) was a Sicilian gastronome, culinary historian, folklorist, and vintner. He collected authentic recipes from family notebooks, interviews, and historical records from as far back as Sicily’s Greek period. Oronzo Editions published his book and other Italian cookbooks: www.oronzoeditions.com.
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martins Press.
SEEKING SICILY. Copyright © 2011 by John Keahey. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Map by Ken Gross
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Keahey, John.
Seeking Sicily: a cultural journey through myth and reality in the heart of the Mediterranean / John Keahey.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
e-ISBN 9781429990677
1. Sicily (Italy)—Description and travel. 2. Keahey, John—Travel—Italy—Sicily. 3. Sicily (Italy)—Social life and customs. 4. National characteristics, Sicilian. 5. Sicily (Italy)—Intellectual life. I. Title.
DG864.3.K43 2011
945'.8—dc23
2011026786
First Edition: November 2011
