LAMPEDUSA, Guiseppe di.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

The Leopard. First edition in English of the author's only published work. Il Gattopardo (1958) had been rejected in previous drafts by multiple major Italian publishers and was only released a year after Lampedusa's death under the supervision of his widow. The Leopard became one of the best-selling Italian novels of all time and won the 1959 Strega Prize, the country's highest award for fiction."Lampedusa's Sicily is a place where the optimistic, progressive, rational forces of history as viewed in the 19th century... get lost in baroque back streets at midnight. As a myth, as a fiction of history, The Leopard will continue to ensnare minds, and not only in Italy. Lampedusa's despair is not so different from that of today's world, with its shrunken political expectations. We are all Sicilians now" (Jones). It was adapted for film in 1963 and won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2025, it was adapted for television.

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