An idol of our century

Leonardo Sciascia was born in Racalmuto in Sicily in 1921, he was an Italian writer, journalist, essayist, playwright, poet, politician, art critic and teacher, known for having denounced the Mafia criminal association in a conspiratorial and mafia period through the book “The day of the owl”. Sciascia was born in a Sicilian family where there were his brothers, the father who was an employee and the mother was a housewife; in 1935 the Sciascia family moves to Caltanissetta where Leonardo will attend the teaching institute there and among all the professors he will meet Vitaliano Brancati who will become fundamental for the life of a writer. In 1944 he married Maria Ardonico and from the marriage two daughters Anna Maria and Laura Sciascia were born. In 1957 he worked in public education in Rome, then returned to Caltanissetta where he became an employee of an office of the school patronage and in 1967 he moved to Palermo to stay more with his family and for books, newspaper articles and two years later he will collaborate with il corriere della sera and retired in 1970.After a life full of activities and political commitments, he was affected by multiple myeloma, he went to Milan for treatment and continued to write but unfortunately passed away on November 20, 1989 in Palermo. In addition to the book “The day of the owl” published in 1961 by the Einaudi publishing house which I remember was one of the books of the time to speak openly about the mafia; there are also other books that Sciascia wrote as: “To each his own”; “The disappearance of Majorana”; “The context”; “A simple story” etc …