Andrea Camilleri
(Born 6 September, 1925 at Porto Empedocle in Sicily. Died 17 July, 2019 in Rome.)
Andrea Camilleri |
Camilleri wrote 28 novels featuring his engaging if fractious hero, the interval between publication in Italy and abroad being such that readers of the stories in English still had five titles in the series to look forward to even after his death in 2019, at the age of 93. Translated into 32 languages, they have sold in excess of 30 million copies.
In addition to the Montalbano series, Camilleri wrote more than 50 other books, including collections of short stories and other novels, his prolific output all the more remarkable for the fact that he did not begin writing in earnest until he was in his late 60s.
Until then, Camilleri had enjoyed a successful career in theatre and television, where he had a reputation as a director of considerable talent, even if rather less famous than he would become for his writing.
The latest cover of the first Montalbano story |
He sold some poetry and short stories as a young author, but it was his successful application for a place at the Accademia Nazionale d’Arte Drammatica in Rome that changed his life. It opened the door to a career in directing and production that brought him much acclaim. He is credited with being the first to stage a production of a Samuel Beckett play in Italy and after moving into television in 1957 he began to develop an affinity for detective dramas, producing a string of hits.
His writing continued sporadically, and after a couple of novels published in the late 1970s generated only modest sales and interest he put his pen aside for 12 years. This time, his novel La stagione della caccia (The Hunting Season), published when he was 66, turned out to be a best-seller. Two years later, Inspector Montalbano appeared for the first time in La forma dell’acqua (The Shape of Water), based in the fictional town of Vigàta, which Camilleri modelled on Porto Empedocle.
Luca Zingaretti plays Montalbano in the TV adaptations of the books |
The stories also contain an element of social commentary. After growing up under the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini, of whom his father was an active supporter, Camilleri moved in the opposite direction, politically. He was a member of the Communist Party as a young man and continued to support radical, left-wing causes throughout his life. He regularly pronounced his opposition for populists and right-wingers such as Silvio Berlusconi and Matteo Salvini, sometimes in the pages of his books.
Despite continuing to work in television, Camilleri produced books at a phenomenal speed, sometimes completing several in the same year. Camilleri’s final Montalbano story, entitled simply Riccardino, which is due to be published in English late in 2021 or 2022, was actually written in 2005 and placed in a safe at the offices of his Italian publisher, Sellerio, to be published only when he grew tired of or was not capable of writing more.
Inspector Montalbano novels (English publication dates):
1. The Shape of Water (2002)
2. The Terracotta Dog
(2002)
5. Excursion to Tindari
(2005)
9. The Paper Moon
(2008)
12. The Track of Sand
(2010)
13. The Potter's Field
(2011)
14. The Age of Doubt (2012)
15. The Dance Of The Seagull
(2013)
16. Treasure Hunt
(2013)
17. Angelica's Smile
(2014)
18. Game of Mirrors (2015)
19. Blade of Light (2015)
20. A Voice in the Night (2016)
21. A Nest of Vipers (2017)
22. The Pyramid of Mud (2018)
23. The Overnight Kidnapper (2019)
24. The Other End of the Line (2019)
25. The Safety Net (2020)
26. The Sicilian Method (2020)
27. The Cook of the Halcyon (April, 2021)
28. Riccardino (2021 or 2022)
Montalbano's First Case
(2013) – has been written as a prequel to the
series.
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