His life is adventurous as the characters he has created. And as confirmed by the new novel “The End of History”, a historical plot, full of encounters and events that combine reality and fantasy, to prevent the reporting of any dictatorship and the sentencing of the criminal practice of torture. Among the biggest and most beloved writers of our time, an activist with a strong political and social engagement, Luis Sepúlveda will present the book in Italian national preview at the conclusion of the first edition of “Sea Landscapes“, the exhibition that fuses literature and music, theater and tourist itineraries , promoted with great success by the Regional Tourism, Sport and Entertainment Department to put the spotlight on the literary, culture and art prestige of Sicily.
The event is scheduled for Thursday, November 17 at the Theatre Sangiorgi Catania (h. 20.30). For the occasion Sepúlveda will receive the Sicily Award, conferred on him the Councillor for Tourism, Sport and Entertainment of Sicily Region Anthony Barbagallo, who strongly wanted “Sea Landscapes”, flagship project of an innovative action of cultural tourism that intends to increase the seasonal adjustment of tourism flows.
“The recognition – said the commissioner Barbagallo – will be awarded in Sepúlveda for the excellence of his literary production, and civil and human values it transmits. It vibrates in him the soul of a city of the South of the World, of which it knows the splendours, but also the aberrations. We award in him a refined writer and an indomitable spirit who fought and fight bravely, as much with political activism than with a pen, for the protection of human rights, the legality, the protection of nature and of man’s freedom. An intellectual and an artist who loves Sicily and is loved in return. A testimonial for the Isle of Verga and Pirandello.”
The meeting with Luis Sepúlveda will be conducted by the television journalist Alberto Bilà. The sound suggestions will be proposed by the notes of the saxophonist Francesco Cafiso, one of the most precocious talents in jazz history. By the voice of Mariano Rigillo, theater, film and television actor, fifty-year career and success, we will listen the selected songs for reading.
The Catania event sealed so “Sea Landscapes”, an itinerant project that set out to explore Sicily through five cultural encounters and five tourist routes, starting from the seaside town, from the suggestions of great writers and the many cultural influences from the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs and Normans. The design and organization of events has been assigned to Taormina Book Festival, chaired by Antonella Ferrara: “Sepúlveda closes in Catania on the path of this first edition, open to Palermo from another great international author, Tahar Ben Jelloun, and continued through the testimonies of important Sicilian writers: Dacia Maraini in Agrigento, Matteo Collura in Syracuse, Santo Piazzese and Gaetano Savatteri in Marsala. Next to them musicians, actors, journalists and foreground intellectuals. I wish to thank them all for having cultured and understood the spirit of the event, ie start a dialectic confrontation that sees once again Sicily itself as crossroads of civilizations and be a laboratory of ideas to tackle the problems of the global village”.
“Sea Landscapes” is promoted by the Tourism, Sport and Entertainment Department of Sicily Region, as part of the interregional project “Sea and sea mines”, aimed at enhancing the natural excellence linked to coastal resources and their hinterlands. The identification of the tourist routes is organized by the Phoenicians’ Route – Cultural Route of the Council of Europe and the World Tourism Organization, of which he is director Antonio Barone. In Catania, the meeting will be presented the Itinerary of the Grand Tour: Goethe & Co., inspired by the steps accomplished by the writer in 1787, between 29 March and 14 May, from Palermo to Messina via Alcamo, Segesta, Castelvetrano, Sciacca, Agrigento, Caltanissetta, Castrogiovanni (Enna), Catania and Taormina. An invitation to visit and to live Sicily through a travelogue in search of classical civilization vestiges that still allow to get in touch with an ancient culture and its beauty. Goethe told a little known Sicily at the time, helping to create the myth. His diary is part of the rich collection of trips to Sicily at the time of the Grand Tour: experiences recounted by great authors of the past and that “Sea Landscapes” declines in the present.
Luis Sepúlveda, writer
Alberto Bilà, journalist – Mariano Rigillo, actor – Francesco Cafiso, saxophonist
