Guides: Alumni Travel Reading: Flavors of Sicily

Bibliographer

Selected and Annotated By:

Joseph Holub

Research & Instructional Services Librarian

Latin American Studies

Spanish & Portuguese Language & Literature

holub @ pobox.upenn.edu

Website Edited By:

Kelsey LeClair

Specialist in Classical Studies

Administrative Assistant

kleclair @ pobox.upenn.edu

Sicily and Culture

The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily by Dino Buzzati (Introduction by); Frances Lobb
Call Number: PZ8.B965 Be 2003
ISBN: 9781590170762
Publication Date: 2003
A group of bears living on a mountain in Sicily suddenly find themselves facing starvation when a terrible winter leaves them without food. The bears are forced to descend the mountain and enter into the city where the bear king's son, Tony, has been kept captive for many years. However, once they approach the city, things do not turn out as they had imagined, and the bear king, Leander, is left to save his community from the enticing grasps of human civilization. An Italian childrens' allegory, that raises the questions surrounding humanity.
Midnight in Sicily by Peter Robb
Call Number: Van Pelt Library DG869.3 .R63 1998
ISBN: 9780312426842
Publication Date: 2007
In this book, Peter Robb explores the dark side of Sicily.
Seeking Sicily by John Keahey
Call Number: DG864.3 .K43 2011
ISBN: 9780312597054
Publication Date: 2011
Seeking Sicily explores what lies behind the soul of the island's inhabitants. It touches on history, archaeology, food, the Mafia, and politics and looks to nineteenth- and twentieth-century Sicilian authors to plumb the islanders' so-called Sicilitudine.
Bitter Almonds: Recollections & Recipes from a Sicilian Girlhood by Maria Grammatico
Call Number: Van Pelt Library TX773 .G673 1994
ISBN: 9780553814651
Publication Date: 2003
A Remarkable memoir, a tribute to Sicilian food and culture, and the record of an historic and vanishing craft. At the heart of the book are forty-six recipes of unique Sicilian specialities, written down for the first time. From the publisher.

Sicily & Southern Italy

Sicily, Photograph by Scott Wylie from Creative Commons Flikr

For more information on this and other excursions, please visit Penn Alumni Travels.

Sicily and History

The Kingdom of Sicily, 1100-1250: A Literary History by Karla Mallette
Call Number: Van Pelt E-book PQ5902.S52 |b M35 2005
ISBN: 9780812204797
Publication Date: 2011
Karla Mallette surveys the literary production in Arabic, Latin, Greek, and Romance dialects, in addition to the architectural remains, numismatic inscriptions, and diplomatic records, to argue for a multilingual, multicultural, and coherent literary tradition.
In Sicily by Norman Lewis
Call Number: DG863 .L49 2000
ISBN: 0312290489
Publication Date: 2002
Norman Lewis writes of landscape and language, recording his memories and considers the effects of African immigration, of Palermo and its ruined palaces - and of strange superstitions, witches, bandits, and murder.

Sicily: An Island of Fire

Published by the New York Travel Club. Available through HathiTrust.org

Nobel Laureatte: Luigi Pirandello

Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) is a Sicilian author, playwright, and poet, born in Agrigento. In 1934, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for "bold and brilliant rennovation of the drama and the stage". This collection of his plays includes the English translations of Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore (Six Characters In Search of an Author), Enrico IV (Henry IV), and Così è (se vi pare) (So It Is (If You Think So)). This facsimile is accessible through Hathitrust.org

Sicily and Art

Sicily: Art and Invention between Greece and Rome by Claire L. Lyons, Michael Bennett and Clemente Marconi, editors
Call Number: Van Pelt Library DG55.S5 S535 2013
ISBN: 9781606061336
Publication Date: 2013
In the late 8th Century B.C., émigrés from the Greek mainland founded colonies along the shores of the region now known as Sicily. This book highlights the artists, poets, and scientists who attained levels of ingenuity rivaling those of their ancestral home.
Theater Outside Athens: Drama in Greek Sicily and South Italy by Kathryn Bosher (Editor)
Call Number: Van Pelt Library PA3202 .T44 2012
ISBN: 0521761786
Publication Date: 2012
This volume brings together archeologists, art historians, philologists, literary scholars, political scientists and historians to articulate the ways in which western Greek theater was distinct from that of the Greek mainland and, at the same time, to investigate how the two traditions interacted. From the publisher.
Watching Vesuvius by Sean Cocco
Call Number: Van Pelt Library QE523.V5 C63 2012
ISBN: 0226923711
Publication Date: 2012
Mount Vesuvius has been famous ever since its eruption in 79 CE, when it destroyed and buried the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. But less well-known is the role it played in the science and culture of early modern Italy, as Sean Cocco reveals in this wide-ranging study. From the publisher.
The Secrets of Italy: People, Places, and Hidden History by Corrado Augias (translated from the Italian)
ISBN: 0847842746
Publication Date: 2014
One of Italy's best-known writers takes a Grand Tour through her cities, history, and literature in search of the true character of Italy.
Impressions of Southern Italy; British Travel Writing from Henry Swinburne to Norman Douglas by Sharon Ouditt
ISBN: 0415715091
Publication Date: 2013
This book studies the British travellers who visited Italy's Southern territories. Spanning the late eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, the author considers what these travellers discovered, not in the form of a survey, but as a series of unfolding impressions disclosing multiple Southern Italies. From the publisher.

Films set in Sicily: "Stromboli"

This drama stars Ingrid Bergman as Lithuanian war-refugee Karin, who marries Italian fisherman Antonio so she can get out of a hellish internment camp. He takes his new bride back to his native island of Stromboli. Despite her efforts to fit in, the locals reject her.

Click here for the Franklin record.

Summary from Rotten Tomatoes.