Steven Price “The Prince of Lampedusa” | Reading Room with a View

The novel Leopard (also known in Poland as Cheetah) by Italian writer Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, published in 1958, a year after the author's death, is known and read all over the world. The book tells about the last stage of the Bourbon aristocracy in Sicily during the period of the unification of Italy. Who was its author, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa? The answer to this question is sought by Steven Price. In the Reading Room with a view we will talk about his Prince of Lampedusa, but also about the Leopard, Sicily and the taste of life. And since Leopard is also a story about what happens to man and his world when history inevitably changes course, we will try to look at this book from the perspective of Wawel — a place that has witnessed changes for centuries and allows us to ask what of the old worlds really remains with us. We invite you!

meeting place: in front of building No. 5, next to the piggy bank
tickets: 20 zł, online sale

About the book: 1950s, sun-drenched Sicily. Giuseppe Tomasi, the last Duke of Lampedusa, lives in exquisite poverty among a decadent aristocracy. He does not use a car, he walks through Palermo with a cane, stout and hunched, with a body twenty years older than the metric indicates. They call him il mostro — a monster and a devourer. All because of the books — because he does not read them, but devours them.
Steven Price, based on biographical details from the life of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, gives the reader in his hands an elegant and nostalgic novel about a departing world. Recreating the last years of the Cheetah author, he creates a moving story about the edge of life and the fear of going into oblivion. The Duke of Lampedusa is also a tribute to literature and an attempt to penetrate the mind of one of the most outstanding Italian writers of the 20th century (publisher's information).

About the Author: Steven Price is a Canadian poet and novelist. A graduate of the University of Victoria and the University of Virginia. He published eight books, including volumes of poetry and prose. For The Prince of Lampedusa, his last novel, he received the Ethel Wilson Prize and was nominated for the Doris Giller Prize. He lives in Victoria, British Columbia and teaches literature at the university there.

About the discussion leader: Paulina Bandura — cultural manager; professionally engaged in books and promotion of reading. For 10 years she worked at the Pod Globusem Bookstore in Krakow. She cooperated with the Wisława Szymborska Foundation, coordinated three editions of the Night of Bookstores. He writes and talks about books. He cooperates with the Polish Book Chamber, the Wisława Szymborska Foundation, the Book Institute and the Goethe-Institut in Krakow.

The Reading Room with a View is a series of discussions about books that take place in the unique interior of the Wawel Royal Castle Library. We invite people who have read the whole or parts of the book and those who are interested in the topic and the very participation in the conversation.

The invitation is addressed primarily to people 60+.