Dialect Poetry of Southern Italy (Italian Poetry in Translation Book 2)

rest of the regions), as compared with a

national average of respectively 12.90% and

8.14%^4 , in letter-writing the Sicilian

emigrant can express himself in the Italian

language, although dialect is superimposed

on it. Dated 1965-66 are the letters ad

familiares from Kall by the Sicilian emigrant

who represents the dramatis persona of

Entromondo by Antonio Castelli, which

Sciascia considered the only literary work on

emigration based on “recreated documents,”

capable of portraying “the condition of

emigrants as it was, as it is,” followed by the

poems of Tutti dicono Germania Germania

[They All Say Germany Germany] by

Stefano Vilardo.^5 This is how Castelli

reconstructs the epistolary style of the

Sicilian emigrant:

Dear wife I’m writing you these lines to