Five years after the death of Andrea Camilleri, which occurred on July 17, 2019, and in view of the centenary of his birth, September 6, 1925, on the birthday of the creator of Inspector Montalbano, the first initiatives to celebrate the great writer and playwright are announced. Many events also in these last months of 2024. The general program will be announced in January by the Andrea Camilleri Fund, promoter of all the initiatives.
The calendar is very rich and will develop throughout 2025 and for a large part of 2026. In the meantime, for the 99th anniversary, Cento meno Uno starts with the first event of all, “Images, reflections, readings”, in Assisi on September 28th, dedicated to the theatrical work of the writer who, between the end of the 50s and the beginning of the 60s, directed some shows in Assisi that were staged in the theatre of Pro Civitate Christiana, now the organizer of the event with the Municipality of Assisi.
In the theatre direction section of the writer’s vast archive, kept in the Roman headquarters of the Andrea Camilleri Fund, declared of historical interest by the Ministry of Culture, significant attention is given to this Umbrian artistic experience of the Sicilian master, director of some theatrical texts – which had won the drama competition annually announced by Pro Civitate – interpreted by young actors destined to become famous, including Elena Cotta, Enrico Maria Salerno, Mariano Rigillo, Ugo Pagliai, Turi Ferro, Roberto Herlitzka.
On October 25, at the initiative of the Fondazione per il dramma popolare di San Miniato in collaboration with Fondo Camilleri, there will be a study seminar dedicated to the archives that preserve the documentation relating to Camilleri’s theatrical work and the research of some scholars. Among others, the Silvio d’Amico Academy of Dramatic Art will participate.
On the occasion of the Buchmesse, of which Italy will be the Guest of Honor this year from October 16 to 20 in Frankfurt, a special tribute will be dedicated to the great writer on the initiative of his publisher Sellerio, with a public reading of some pages of his works scheduled for October 19.
Among the most anticipated literary events of the year, the publication of the letters to his mother and his family, written between 1949 and 1961 by a young Camilleri, at the beginning of his career. Unpublished until now, they tell of the writer’s meetings with Jean Genet, Jean-Paul Sartre, Anna Magnani, Vittorio De Sica and many others and have been collected in a massive volume of almost 400 pages by Sellerio which will publish them next autumn.
Other initiatives that will anticipate the centenary celebrations are planned for November in Milan as part of the Noir in Festival, which in 2012 awarded Andrea Camilleri the “Raymond Chandler Award,” and in Sicily at the Messina Film Festival. The deadline for sending unpublished works to compete for the new Andrea Camilleri Nuovi Narratori Award, curated by Arianna Mortelliti, writer and granddaughter of the great narrator, expires on January 6.