Andrea Camilleri Bench

 In the coming months I'm going to devote some time to the different streets - and related notable Italians - that populate the city of Terrasini. I should also pay tribute to the artistic benches that the city built to celebrate famous Sicilian artists. There are five of them, which I discovered rather organically on my morning walks. Now that I've tracked down all five, I'll include posts for every one of them. For the sake of geographical order, I'll start in the east and head west. With that in mind. we need to start with Andrea Camilleri. He was born in 1925 in Porto Empedocle in southwest Sicily, and died in 2019 in Rome. He's best known, I suppose, for his Inspector Montalbano novels and short stories, which inspired one of the longest-lasting and most popular television shows in Italian history. Along the way he taught at the National Academy of Dramatic Art, and one of his students was Luca Zingaretti (who starred in the Inspector Montalbano series). He was also a very dedicated and long-time member of the Italian Communist Party (one of the things that I love about Italy is that being a Communist is simply a political and economic decision, and not an allegiance to the dark lord, which seems to be how it is viewed in witless America). We've watched about half of the films, and Janet has read several of the novels - and I'm starting my Camilleri journey soon, as I have the first couple queued up in my Kindle.

Camilleri wrote into his 90s, and in the end grew even more dependent on his assistant as he lost his eyesight. 

Like all the benches, his looks like an open book - and features a lovely view of the sea. It's tucked away between a couple buildings so it's easy to stroll by it, but it's also up the hill from La Sireretta, so it's pretty easy to find. As you head toward the Lungomare, just keep sneaking peeks down alleyways towards the sea and you'll track it down.