Detecting falsehoods: History and mafia in the work of Leonardo Sciascia and Sebastiano Vassalli

Abstract

This article explores points of contact in the work of Leonardo Sciascia (1921–1989) and Sebastiano Vassalli (1941–2015) through historical novels with Sciascia's La strega e il capitano (1986) and Vassalli's La chimera (1990) as well as in their accounts of the mafia in Sciascia's Il giorno della civetta (1972) and Vassalli's Il cigno (1993). Deleuze's conception of falsehood as an essential structural element of crime fiction serves as a mechanism to highlight both authors’ intolerance of false histories and the deliberate obfuscation of the collusion between mafia and the State in Sicily and beyond. While the two writers were often ideologically aligned, Vassalli's narration of the mafia in Il cigno, and his subsequent criticism of Sicilian authors who had failed to ‘impugnare il bisturi’ and expose the true nature of the mafia, created a literary polemic. A debate ensued in the public domain, centering Sciascia in a discussion of positionality and questioning whether Vassalli had the authority to venture opinions on Sicilian matters. This controversy served to revive concerns about the role of literature in creating a coherent national identity or stoking regionalism, while simultaneously problematizing the role of the author as detective able to shed light on intractable problems.