Born in 1907 in the small town of Pachino on the southeast corner of Sicily--a bit farther south than Tunis--Vitaliano Brancati has been called the "most Southern of Italian writers," and is recognized as an eminent contributor to the Sicilian literary canon. When he died prematurely in 1954 at the age of 47, his literary legacy included six novels, eight plays, three collections of short stories, several volumes of essays and literary criticism, hundreds of articles and other journalistic writings, and screenplays for a number of films by leading Italian directors such as Mario Monicelli and Roberto Rossellini.