Conversations about writing by Andrea Camilleri and Manuel Vázquez Montalbán

Year of publication: 2021

Translation: Ernesto C. Gardiner

Valuation: Recommended, especially for fans

There is a particular genre of books that I think is more popular in Italy than in other countries (at least, the examples I know of are Italian) which is the dialogues with or between writers. In some cases, it is about journalists or other authors doing what becomes a long interview with a colleague with the declared aim of publishing it as a book; in others, as in this case, it is about the transcription of conversations, more or less public, between writers, like those that take place at a literary festival, for the amusement of its attendees or sponsored by some media outlet. The ideal, of course, is that the participants in the conversation have interesting things and if they also know each other before and get along well, it becomes much more fluid.

That is what happened with Manuel Vázquez Montalbán and Andrea Camilleri, who were friends, mutual readers and reciprocal admirers of each other’s work – in fact, as is well known and also recounted in this book, Camilleri named his most conspicuous character Montalbano in honour of the Catalan writer; not only that: both shared certain biographical circumstances, such as a “peripheral” origin within their respective states, having grown up under a fascist dictatorship and a common communist militancy. And, above all, a conception of the “Mediterranean” crime novel, different in some aspects from the Anglo-Saxon or Scandinavian tradition.

In the four conversations collected in this book – perhaps three, actually, since the last two took place on the same day and we can consider them as a continuation of one another – carried out between 1998 and 2000, they discuss all these topics and more; from their literary training, their cultural identity or, of course, their love of gastronomy, which has transcended their characters. I must point out here, out of personal preference, the mentions they make of a common reference, also a cultivator of the “Mediterranean” detective novel, although with a more political sense: the master Leonardo Sciascia. The first of the conversations, on the other hand, took place during a literary festival in Mantua and therefore has the added interest of some questions from the public (such as the inevitable one about why Carvalho burned books… In fact, a book a day ; )

In short, it is a quick and very interesting little book to read, especially for the many followers of the work of these two great writers, who have already passed away and, in these times, are often remembered.

Many other titles by Andrea Camilleri reviewed in Un Libro Al Día: here

And also a few (not so many) by Vázquez Montalbán: here