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Dr. Fiore was featured in an article titled in the daily digital newspaper La Voce di New York about the celebration of writer Leonardo Sciascia’s birth centenary held at multiple locations in New York. On Sept. 21, 2022 at CIMA (Center for Italian Modern Art) in Soho, Fiore joined a panel about the role of “America” in Sciascia as well as the U.S. interest in Sciascia: the presenters included Valerio Cappozzo (Professor at the University of Mississippi and Presidente of the Associazione Amici di Sciascia), David Leopold (David Levine Archives), and Francesco Izzo (Executive Director of the National Committee for the Celebrations of Sciascia).

Fiore presented a paper about the part of Sciascia’s work that addresses emigration ranging from the short story “The Long Crossing” to the novella “The American Aunt,” sections of his early publication Salt in the Wound, and references in Candide, or A Dream dreamed in Sicily. The paper argued that Sciascia’s texts on the subject do not constitute a detour from his major themes – justice and power – but are actually an intrinsic part of his reflection about human existence and socio-political dynamics. While European destinations are mentioned in his works on emigration, it is “America” that features most prominently in them. In his subtle reading of the interconnections between Sicilian emigration to the U.S. and the 1943 American landing in Sicily, he remains Sciascia the political writer while indirectly gesturing at the largely unknown history of emigration in his family and at the impact of “America” on his little village and the region of Sicily that contains it. In this sense, Fiore concluded that Sciascia’s famous adage – “Sicily as a metaphor of the world” – could be re-formulated as “Emigration as the metaphor of the world,” given Sciascia’s prescience about the centrality of human mobility in our era.

The celebrations for the centenary of Sciascia’s birth featured book presentations at the Rizzoli bookstore, and a two-day symposium at the Italian Cultural Institute, embracing scholars, artists, translators, teachers, students, and journalists. On the occasion, Valerio Capozzo presented an elegant limited edition case containing the reproduction of the first publication penned by Sciascia in English (a 1952 encyclopedia entry about Italian literature) and of the incisive caricature signed by David Levine in 1979. See full program of events.