Signed Ferdinando Scianna - Leonardo Sciascia - 1989

Exceptionally signed copy on the title page by Ferdinando Scianna, unique and unavailable as a signed copy and extremely rare as an unsigned copy. 64 pages and 26 black-and-white photographs, text in Italian by Roberto Leydi, layout by Ferdinando Scianna and Franco Sciadelli (the book is published in a collection created and directed by Ferdinando Scianna). Paperback edition with illustrated soft cover. In excellent condition.

The Sicilian Leonardo Sciascia (1921 – 1989) is one of the most famous Italian writers of the second half of the twentieth century. He notably wrote various detective novels with a political background that later became the subject of high-profile, successful films (Best Screenplay award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1967). In 1971 Le Contesto, a crime novel veiled under a fairly transparent allegory, refers to contemporary Italy, which had just experienced 1968, the major union struggles of 1969 and the first attacks of the “strategy of tension.” This novel sparked violent polemics, not only among circles close to the government, but also among intellectuals and left-wing social-communist politicians. He was elected deputy to Parliament under the banner of the Italian Radical Party from 1979 to 1983. During his mandate, he sat on the parliamentary inquiry commission into the murder of Aldo Moro and terrorism.

Ferdinando Scianna was born in 1943. In 1963 Leonardo Sciascia happened to visit his first photographic exhibition by Ferdinando Scianna on religious feasts in Sicily, and their meeting would take place a little later in the same year. In late 1963 Leonardo Sciascia wrote a presentation text for the first exhibition of Ferdinando Scianna in a prestigious library in Milan, and this text formed the sketch of the essay that would be published in January 1965 in the book Feste Religiose in Sicilia, which would provoke various polemics with the Vatican but would enjoy enormous editorial success (https://archiviostorico.fondazionefiera.it/percorso-tematico/milano-negli-occhi-ferdinando-scianna-alla-fiera-campionaria-1966).

From there arose a solid friendship that would continue throughout their lives. Ferdinando Scianna states that he took 1200 photographs of Leonardo Sciascia, which he keeps as a family album, the last of the writer just a few days before his death and which he has never shown to anyone. This book, published in the year of Leonardo Sciascia’s death, thus lets us share some of the photographs of the writer-friend.

Copy in excellent condition with, however, a small defect on the back due to the removal of a price label (see photo). Book from my personal collection kept with the greatest care. Protected shipping with reinforced packaging and guaranteed international postal tracking. For multiple purchases, possible combined shipping with reimbursement of any postage overpaid via PayPal.

0.1 kg excluding packaging.