Contemporary interpretations of Sicilian cultures

Abstract

The volume reviewed aims to analyse the cultural references that allow us to interpret contemporary Sicily. For many people, this is obscured by the cultural categories of the exogroup, national character and stereotypes. Many people get a simplistic idea of the island from tourist guides and travel literature that confine it to the boundaries of ancestry and telurism. These representations, not infrequently dehumanising in their aggressive action, make Sicily and the Sicilians a hyperbolic caricature which they themselves, not infrequently, assume to be good. However, there is a vibrant island in which various cultures converge to generate a polyhedral Sicilianity that is historically shaped by various myths. These myths tell us about reality, about how we represent it, when it is so complex that it cannot be understood without a story that endorses certain values.