Born in 1925 at Porto Empedocle, in Sicily, Andrea Camilleri is one of Italy's top authors. When still a young man, he moved to Rome, where he soon established himself in the television industry as a scriptwriter and director.
Camilleri hit the literary scene at a relatively advanced age, mainly because his style took long to be accepted. His works include the best-selling Commissario Montalbano series, which has been televised by RAI TV for the last 20 years, and historical novels with pungent satirical overtones relevant to contemporary Sicilian and Italian society. They are all set in the imaginary Vigàta of the 20th or 19th century.
Camilleri was of distant Maltese origins and this attracted my attention when, back in 1998, I was travelling from Florence to Rome. At the Florence railway station I noticed a tascabile (a pocket-sized paperback) penned by one Andrea Camilleri. The name struck me, for my first impression was that one of my compatriots had published a novel in Italy.
My intuition was not wholly wrong, for in La Strage Dimenticata Camilleri claims that his family, like the Buhagiars, the Attards, and others, descended from Maltese immigrants at Porto Empedocle, the port close to Agrigento.
My fascination with the author was instantaneous. Not only because of the Maltese connection, but also because of the unique admixture of Italian and Sicilian and the persistent recurrence of Sicilian loanwords in our own language. If the average Italian finds it tough to understand at first blush words such as tabbuto, addunnari, inzertari, and so on, for us it certainly is not.
In November 1999, I wrote a letter to the Maestro, and on Christmas eve of that year I received a reply from him, inviting me to pay him a visit in his Rome apartment.
In February 2000, I was in Rome, and together with an Italian friend, visited him in his Rome residence, a tastefully-furnished top-floor apartment. He showed us to the sitting room, and, in the company of two espressos for us and a beer for the maestro, the interview (in Italian) began:
What is your family's connection with Malta?
A great number of Maltese settled in Sicily in the past. I do not know how or when. Among them were the Camilleris. We certainly have Maltese origins. I will say how later. There were also the Cassars, the Buhagiars, the Hamels, the Attards or Attardis. Among the latter was the great Italian sculptor and painter who added i to his surname.
A friend of mine unearthed a document going back to the end of the 17th century. It was a navigational paper, released from Malta as a departure clearance. In the name of God and of Our Lady, it certified that the crew of the three-masted ship, owned and captained by Captain Giuseppe Camilleri, crew members: Attard and Hamel, and a clean bill of health. This was perhaps meant to avoid quarantine in (Molo di) Girgenti, today known as Porto Empedocle. The papers specify that the cargo was drapery - a lot of silk smuggling was then carried out between Malta and Sicily.
Then I followed the names in my family: Andrea, Stefano, Giuseppe, Carmelo. All names that recur in my family tree.
When I worked for RAI I received many letters from Malta. People there evidently watched my programmes. Once I even got a telephone call from the Maltese Embassy saying that a young nephew of Dom Mintoff's wished to visit the RAI studios. I managed to take him around with great difficulty because it was not easy to take a boy around. After that we bade farewell and that was that.
Did you ever visit Malta?
Never. My daughter, the middle one, came to Malta for a month. She said there were myriad Camilleris there.
How does a Sicilian living in Rome perceive Malta?
Well.,. there is one thing that ought to be said at the outset. There is a common insularity, both in the major and in the minor case. We are all islanders. Before air connections, we had to cross over by boat... isolation was more real. I have always thought of two concentric circles within which my distant provenance took place. Now, this is the end of my voyage.
My residence in Rome, though lasting over 50 years, is of a casual nature. I do not consider myself a Roman. I continue being a Sicilian in all senses, though not according to certain traditional prototypes. Indeed had I not been Sicilian, I would have been unable to write have I have written.
May we consider Vigàta a fictional Porto Empedocle?
Well, how shall I put it? It is Porto Empedocle with a variable architecture, in the sense that the confines of the place expand and condense themselves. Vigàta is an artefact based on Porto Empedocle. It all goes back to a sort of collected memories from childhood or early youth.
You see, the only lyceum in the province then... the nearest that is - for if I remember correctly there was another at Sciacca but that was too far away - was in Agrigento. So every morning, school buses left from the neighbouring villages - Giardiano Galloni, Racalmuto, RAffadali - carrying schoolchildren to the town square where they assembled at 8 a.m. outside the lyceum building. School started at 8:30 a.m.
During that half-hour, the boys related what had occurred in the various villages the day before. The impression was created that we all lived in one common village. This is how Vigàta was born. That was Vigàta's coming to life: the end result of common events and memories. Where the physical aspect of it is concerned is a secondary matter.
How far was your writing influenced by those two great Sicilian writers, Lampedusa and Sciascia, in your re-creation of Sicily?
I was hardly influenced by Giuseppe di Lampedusa because I do not like his novel (Il Gattopardo / The Leopard) at all. You must recall that two other great Sicilian writers, Elio Vittorini and Leonardo Sciascia, too, did not like him. Lampedusa's thesis - which is known as Gattopardismo - is based on the model set by the Salina princes who opted out of Italian history regardless of the Piedmontese invitation to participate in post-Unification national life. Indeed this points to the reasons behind Sicily's subjugation.
As far as Sciascia is concerned, I admire his use of the language which he wields like a well-honed sword, and the control he exercised over his writing which is coloured by reason. As for myself, I try to follow reason and half-way through I become angry and lose control.
Having said that, I must add that before starting a novel, before I set out on any important writing, I pick up a book by Sciascia, the first one I find around, and read it. It is like going to my car electrician to charge my car battery. Sciascia, for some mysterious reason, charges my batteries, enabling me to take up my pen and start writing. This is my honest relationship with Sciascia.
Would you care to comment on the anecdote you mention in one of your books - the relationship between Pirandello and your grandmother?
Yes. We must go back to 1935, a year before Pirandello's demise. I was a child of ten, an only son in the family. At that time there were no telephone in my town, hardly any means of communication. At best, the maid-servant would inform us of an imminent visit to the house. The servant would then announce: "Tomorrow, Signora so-and-so would like to call..." This setting explains what happened.
Pirandello had dictated in 1911 the wording of an inscription to be affixed on the building of the new schools which were being set up. You must remember that 1911 was the 50th anniversary of the Unification of Italy. This splendid inscription, dictated to his brother while writing the famous I Vecchi e i Giovani, referred to the two peoples (the mainland, and particularly the northern Italians, and the Sicilians) as "uniti si vollero sotto il comune segno di Roma" which is abundantly ambiguous in that you can interpret the situation of the two peoples in two ways: first, "they wanted to be united under the common mark of Rome," or else, "united as they were, they came under the common mark of Rome". In other words, you were free to consider them as coming under Rome of their volition or because other wanted them to. Splendid ambiguity, particularly for those years.
In 1935, Mussolini's Fascists were building new schools. So they took the inscription from the old school and fixed it in the new one. For this occasion, they invited Pirandello to come over.
This was another reason for Pirandello to visit us, apart from the fact that he called on us rather frequently. On that day, precisely at 3 in the afternoon - I remember precisely because as Sciascia says, on growing old one acquires sharper memory of distant events and a dimmer one of closer events - I opened the door to see what I perceived to be an admiral. What with his shining uniform, I was sure he was. I was very excited.
He spoke to me in dialect. "Tu cu si?" "Who are you?" "Tu si lu niputi di Carolina? La chiami e le dici che c'è 'u cuscinu Pirannellu?" "You must be Carolina's grandson, will you call her and tell her that there is cousin Pirandello?" It was a hot afternoon. Grandma was asleep in her room.
I woke her up and told her of Pirandello's coming. My grandma's reaction stunned me. You must bear in mind that Pirandello was a Nobel Prize winner and known as such even in our small, provincial town. Then I ran to my parents' room to tell them the news.
When I returned I saw grandma and the "Admiral" embracing. Grandma was in tears and the "Admiral" was patting her on the back saying, "Oh, Carolina, Carolina, where is our splendid youth?" End of story. After that, I was precluded from observing the emotional scene and left still frightened by the whole episode.
On the other hand, in the house of my paternal grandparents, the conversation often turned to Pirandello because his father had been a business partner with my grandfather Vincenzo. They therefore exchanged gifts and letters. Funny, but it was only three ago that I came to know why Luigi Pirandello came often to my grandparents' house. And I learnt it all from Fausto Pirandello's son, Piergiorgio.
Fausto was then Luigi's painter son, you know. Piergiorgio is more or else my age. He said: "You know something, they were first cousins."
"How do you mean, first cousins?" said I in surprise.
He explained: "When your father died, Uncle Stefano and my father (Fausto) were together and read the news of his passing in Il Messaggero. Papà said he would send a telegram but Uncle Stefano he would be writing because they were family. Fausto was unaware of this relationship but Stefano explained their father and your maternal grandmother were first cousins as they were the children of two sisters."
This I learnt after I published the book where I related Pirandello's visit to our house.
My father, who is a writer and quite knowledgeable on things Italian, always told me he knew Pirandello's family had Maltese connections.
Yes, and it was for that reason that Pirandello came to visit on that distant day in 1935. It was only my mentioning the occasion that the truth about our relationship surfaced.
Of your books the one I liked reading most was Il cane di terracotta. Not because it is a detective story, as much as because of its Sicilian viewpoint, a Weltanschauung resulting particularly from the placement of the stratum perched on other cultural strata. To me as a Maltese, coming from an island which has so much in common with Sicilian history, the question comes naturally, how do we define our real identity against such a given cultural stratification? What do you say to the existence of an identity crisis?
I believe there is an identity crisis everywhere. That we are carrying into the twenty-first century is the uncertainty about identity concerning a great number of factors, particularly the immigration phenomenon. What I find rather funny is when I hear people say, "Let us build more comfortable welcoming centres...," when we are really discussing the movement of millions of persons over a period of few years. The measures to be taken ought to be those concerning the recovery of one's own identity. This is the only way of salvation. Not putting up barriers as in the case of Austria.
I have always striven to preserve my identity, which I am more and more comparing with certain precious stones forming part of a compact block. If you look closer you will glimpse the strata, but there is a formation which has become a block. They are like glass beads, I do not know you have ever seen these beautiful objects. I think of myself as being this type of mineral which while not wishing to lose its outer crust, as this would be a diminution, wants to remember where it has been extracted from and what specific ambience it came from. This is of the essence and it is very important to preserve this.
You see, in my articles I underline the importance of dialects, not only mine but others as well... Friulian, the Lombard dialects. When I hear of the demise of a dialect, I compare it to the extermination of a rich entity. And this at a time when the Italian language has changed so drastically for the worse.
Sometimes you cannot understand what an article written in Italian is trying to say unless you know English. I am not Fascist propounding the autocracy of the language which reached a point of sheer absurdity and I have often asked why it is that only 35% of Italians today speak a dialect. I was rebuked: we are entering Europe and you bring up such matters? My reply: if I must enter Europe wearing a suit cut by a European tailor, so be it; but let me keep my underwear; let these be of my home country.
So, Il cane di terracotta, is doubtlessly an important book, apart from the fact that I consider it the best of my detective stories, precisely because it was born from the clash between two cultures which could hardly be distinguished from one another, such was the interaction between the two.
Is this the great dilemma colouring one's living in the centre of the Mediterranean?
So it is, as Ibn Hamdis said. This poet, whom I find rather funny, was one of the great Arab Sicilian poets born in Noto, whose verse echoed the great beauty of Andalusia's marvellous gardens: "Ah, the nostalgia for the tiny house in the barren place I had in Noto..." Ha! Ha! Across the sea the poet feels homesick for the Sicilian desert.
In your view the sea is a source of consolation, am I right?
Ah! For Montalbano (Camilleri's alter ego) it is!
How great is the similarity between Camilleri and Commissario Montalbano?
Well, we have many things in common. For one thing, I have always been one you could invite home without fearing that something might happen. We both belong to the Left, not being party members, but subscribing to welfare ideas and so forth. In other things, we part ways. For instance, Montalbano's relationship with Livia. He is single, a lone wolf, whereas I have always tended to be a patriarch. I am happy when I have three children about me, and four grandchildren, three sons-in-law... well...
Montalbano would go off his rocker if he had to have children in the house. As for myself, I miss them if they are away for a day. While I am writing, they pick up an unholy din, but I do not lose my temper. I am not bothered by their pranks. My wife is always complaining about the extremely loud noise we have in our home. She says: "You are no writer, you're a war correspondent."
To go back to the linguistic aspect of your books, would it be valid to ascribe your success - you are currently Italy's top writer - to the fact that you manage to inject new life in the Italian language by means of the mixed Italian and Sicilian vocabulary you use in your books?
This is a terrible question. But if we cannot avoid it, let us to provide a sensible answer to it. For ten years, between 1968 and 1978, the replies I got from publishers were always: "No, go and do some other job." The funny thing is that I took them seriously. Though greatly displeased by this treatment, I did not despair. After all, I was still earning lots of money as a theatre and television director.
Besides, I have always been a democratic leftist: if ten publishers turned me down, I thought they were right because they represented the majority. Therefore, I accepted their verdict. When my moment of success arrived and Garzanti published my first book, they expected me to add a glossary. "Give us a dictionary at the end, otherwise nobody will understand a thing."
That was the first and last time I appended a dictionary to my books. Then, little by little the number of readers who accustomed to my way of writing grew and it took the form of a game: trying to understand what I was saying due to the powerful motivation engendered by my story. My readers became curious to find out how the story would unfold and things would ultimately develop.
Concerning the dialect, Sciascia was not in agreement. "Nenè Camilleri, you put in too many Sicilian words," he would say. And I: "Leonà, watch out please, I do not put in words... I write in Sicilian." Which is different. Then Sciascia would say, "A me piace Il filo di fumo Camillè, a me piace assà... però sta cammurìa che tiri fora..."
I repeat that Sciascia was always bettering his Italian, while I was seeking other ways. There is no doubt that once the reader finds this out, he's already hooked by the peculiar jargon and continues reading avidly. At the beginning the reader must be patient.
I want to tell you a story that will make things plainer. One day I took the train to Lucca. My friends suggested I take off at Livorno, where they would pick me up in their car. The Roma-Ostiense station was deserted except for a couple who were speaking in Turinese. We got on the train, the man pulled out a book by Bruno Vespa, his wife started reading one of mine, Il ladro di merendine.
At one stage the husband asked his wife how she could continue to read such a book and keep laughing. He said he had read three pages of it himself but could not endure it. "I am not surprised," the wife said, "you are so lazy." That lady had encapsulated the Italian attitude to books and the reason why people may be unable to read my books. It was time for me to alight. I bade them a nice trip, particularly to the lady "so that she could continue laughing at what I said in the book". She was delighted to find out I was the author.
"Dottor Camilleri," she said, "give me your autograph so that my husband will have more reason to be furious." I did so gladly. That lady had spelled out the truth about my books. For Italians to enjoy my books they must be patient.
In other languages, it is different. Up to now, I have had twenty-two books translated in foreign languages - German, French, Spanish, Dutch. They are a hit. They evidently translate well. Needless to say, the dialect is lost. On September 6 last year, I was informed that Il birraio di Preston was published in France. Shortly afterwards, I learned it had won the Ouessant Prize.
I did not have the foggiest idea what this Prize was. They said they would let me know and send me the Brest newspaper. It transpired that Ouessant is an island to the north of Brest from where the fishing boats leave for the north seas. It has a population of 3,500. Its new mayor decided to set up a prize reserved for island writers. So I won the prize among writers from Ireland and other islands. Well, we cannot really say that the Sicilian dialect that reached that part of the world.
One reason why I liked your jargon was because many words you use exist also in Maltese, like inzirtari, scantatu, addunari, also phrases like "Cu nasci tunnu 'un po moriri quatratu"...
This does not happen only in Maltese. Sometimes, French or Spanish translators say: "But these are our words." What do they mean? When have they been to Sicily?
A concept that has struck me in your works is the concept of being "omu". It is uncannily similar to the Maltese concept of "irġulija". What does "omu" mean to a Sicilian?
In Sciascia's Il giorno della civetta, the Mafia boss says to the Police Chief: "Men are divided into categories: the omu, the sottomu, the ominicchio, the piglianculu, and the quaquaraquà. Omini are very few, sottomini many - and I would be very happy if humanity stopped there - the ominicchi have perhaps half the form of the omini but they are not omini, the piglianculu who, with all due respect, have become legion and the quaquaraquà are geese who wallow in the pool crying out quaquaraquà..."
"And what am I?" asked the Police Chief.
"You are a man - an omu." By this he means that the Police Chief is a man of his word. When you hear Totò Riina slamming Buscetta saying "He has lovers" he is not speaking about morals but in the sense of the "omu" - "You have given your word but not kept it". "Omu" is he who fully respects the word he has given as well as the rules of the game. He who does not stoop so low as "to hoodwink" others. This is the basic concept of "man" for a Sicilian.
In some cases Montalbano needs only to cast a look in order to be understood by a fellow agent, because friendship does not need words. What is this Sicilian friendship?
Sicilian friendship, I have once written, is a different art. I took as an example the correspondence that passed between Luigi Pirandello and his great friend Nino Martoglio. Martoglio was a great impresario as well as a film director. The letters they exchanged are today somewhat embarrassing. "I kiss you on the mouth with great love" they would write. A phrase no one would today dare put down in writing. But does this mean they were gay? No, they were friends, real friends. So, in this sense, friendship is more meaningful than love, a more powerful feeling.
In 1960, I happened to stage an opera by Donizetti, who was from Bergamo. I called an old Sicilian actor, Turi Pandolfini, who had worked with Pirandello and Martoglio for many years. I said: "Turi, Pirandello and Martoglio, did they speak during rehearsals?" "Ahem, they held conversations between them." "And what they did say tell one another?" "Nun lu sacciu - I do not know." "How do you mean? Where you there or not?" "I was there, ma nun lu sacciu." The reason Turi never found out what they said was that they never spoke with their mouths but with their eyes. I once wrote an article on this phenomenon in a German paper: "Why Sicilians speak with their eyes." It is self-defence. It is quite clear that theirs is a non-verbal language. In Italy we had an example of it thanks to a video in which a Mafia boss talks to his wife by gazing at her while making little gestures saying that what he meant was totally different from what he was going to utter in words. I saw this on RAI TV.
Friendship is so deep that a friend need not ask anything of his friend because his friend must understand even before the request is made. If the other is obliged to express himself in words, it means the friendship between the two is less than perfect.
Pirandello's fabulous friendship with Martoglio is interrupted by a letter from Pirandello who says: "Dear friend, last night you said a word to me which you ought not have said. Not only that, it was a word I would have never expected you to say at all." Thus a ten-year-old friendship came to an abrupt end. Just for one word. I never found out what the word was. But those two knew it.
Montalbano is the same. He knows that Mimì Augello is his friend. He knows that Sicilian friendship is made of long silences. Vincenzo Gonzo once went to see his friend Sciascia. The latter's secretary, dumbfounded, would later say: "They have been there for one hour, without talking." They were talking. Only she could not understand. Ha! Ha!
Only among men?
Only among men.
What about women? How is friendship among women?
I do not think it exists among women. In recent years, maybe. Once I was in Saudi Arabia and I happened to see them wearing muzzles of gold and silver. They simply could not speak. I saw three or four, extremely rich and wonderful, but unable to speak. They literally carried great loads of diamonds and jewellery, you know.
Once I saw one of these muzzled ladies signalling to her equally rich husband to follow her around. She was muzzled but she could still make herself understood by her husband.
That is why we say that we have removed the muzzle from our ladies and have invited them to sit down at table with us but still they speak among themselves. Ha! Ha!
That is also why Montalbano has a true female friend who is Swedish. As Eliot says, women come and go speaking of Michelangelo, but only among themselves.
What hopes do you see for Sicily's future?
Many. If the Third World decides to do something. It is one of the most sincere replies I can give to such a question. I do not have high hopes where Europe is concerned. I can see hopes for Sicily's future coming from Africa, from the Mediterranean littoral. From that direction yes, I do see hopes.
© 2000 Mark A. Sammut