L'ordine delle somiglianze e il disordine delle similitudine. Note sull'inattualità del romanziere e il saggista

This article – prepared for the «XIV Leonardo Sciascia Colloquium» held in Venice on November 13th and 14th 2023 – analyses the essay-writing novelist’s unique position and uses Sciascia’s famous article on the order of similarities to link this position to Michel Foucault’s interpretation of René Magritte’s artistic works. The thesis is that Sciascia’s work is characterised by the use of similarity (between fiction and reality), whereas similitude represents postmodern literature, and osmosis is typical of 21st-century literature. The author of Racalmuto’s approach is thus different from that of contemporary literature.