Andrea Camilleri didn't make it. The 93-year-old Sicilian writer died at 8.20 this morning in Rome after being admitted to the Santo Spirito hospital last June 17 for cardiac arrest. The death was communicated "with deep condolences" by the ASL Roma 1, which explained that "the always critical conditions of these days have worsened in the last few hours, compromising vital functions".
By the will of the master and the family, the funeral will be reserved. It will be announced where to bring a final tribute”, reads the hospital bulletin.
Writer, screenwriter, director, playwright, teacher, Camilleri was best known for the series of detective novels set around the now famous Inspector Montalbano thanks to which it has sold over 30 million copies worldwide. The first, “The shape of water”, came out in 94 for Sellerio Editore. The highly successful TV series in which the Commissioner is played by Luca Zingaretti is based on the novels. Just in the days of his hospitalization, the release of his latest book 'The cook of the Alcyon' was scheduled, again with the Sellerio publishing house. Camilleri was also preparing to debut with the show that tells his self-defense of Cain at the Baths of Caracalla. He had continued to do what he did best, telling stories, despite his age and an illness that had nearly blinded him.
LThe whole of Italy mourns the father of Inspector Montalbano. Through his stories set in Vigata, an imaginary town in Sicily, Camilleri recounted the mafia, murders and kidnappings – but also the G8 in Genoa, immigration, corruption in public procurement – using a mixed language of Italian and Sicilian which slowly millions of readers have begun to get used to it, eventually understanding and loving it, even speaking it in every part of Italy.
In 2006, thirteen years ago, Camilleri gave the publisher Sellerio the last book with the ending of the story of Montalbano, requesting that it be published after his death. "I wrote it straight away, you never know if Alzheimer's will come," she said. Since then, as the writer himself explained, the manuscript has been kept in a drawer.
“If I could, I would like to finish my career sitting in a square telling stories and at the end of my 'cunto', passing through the audience with the flat cap in hand” Camilleri had said several times.
