Camilleri - Italian writer

Andrea Camilleri, Italian writer, in 1994 pubblished the first series of novels La forma dell’Acqua featured the character of Insepctor Montalbano who is a fractious Sicilian detective in the police force of Vigata, an imaginary Sicilian town. For Camilleri, language is one of the main characters of the story. In any novel he uses numerous variteties of Italian, dialect from Italian regions, in particular Sicilian,  Anglicisms, slang, neologisms and much more.

It is clear that the conscious use of dialect constitutes the most obvious element of this writer’s style. A translator faces two different challenges of various difficulties. The first is the problem of translating Italian into English. The second is the frequent use of the Sicilian language, in particular in dialogues with people who for one reason or another speak in that language. The easiest way of translating these dialogues is to add a qualifying sentence - these words were spoken in Sicilian. Another way could be to translate the dialogues into slang or colloquial speech.

If you’re curious about Camilleri’s Sicilian, we can visit the Dizionario on the Camilleri Fans Club website. This dictionary provides a list of the Sicilian vocabulary utilized in Camilleri’s literature. It’s important to know that Camilleri italianizes most of his Sicilian to make it more understandable for his non-Sicilian readers.