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Challenging the Mafia Mystique: Cosa Nostra from Legitimisation to Denunciation , by Coluccello Rino , Basingstoke , Palgrave Macmillan , 2016, vii + 260 pp., £68.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-1-137-28049-7
The provocative thesis and substantive variety of writings examined make Rino Coluccello's Challenging the Mafia Mystique a welcome contribution to the relatively few books that specifically analyse representations of the Mafia in Sicily, as crafted in an extensive body of literature. The overarching argument elaborated in the study maintains that in the very first material signs of the Mafia, traced back to the brigands in the eighteenth century as proto-mafiosi, such features as honour, loyalty, and omertￃ are made manifest in various writings, both fabricating and legitimising the Mafia mystique until the 1950s, when works by Danilo Dolci and then Leonardo Sciascia mark a turning point toward denunciation of the Mafia as the dominant trend among intellectuals and the general public alike. This thesis structures the chronological organisation of the nine chapters and determines the choice of source texts analysed, which are selected to illustrate what Coluccello considers the main tendencies of the historical period. Conceiving of literature in its broadest sense, the author discusses a range of representations of the Mafia in Sicily, produced in travel writings, plays, novels, and parliamentary inquiries, as well as works in cultural anthropology and sociology. A substantive bibliography and index provide useful information for readers.
Among the strengths of Coluccello's study is the way he traces both the historical, changing elements constituting the Mafia and its relations...