«Grande e insondabile è il mistero della memoria»: Incursione attraverso le coordinate della memoria nell'opera di Sciascia

This contribution – presented at the «XIV Leonardo Sciascia Colloquium» held in Venice on November 13th and 14th 2023 – analyses the role of memory and its key characteristics in Leonardo Sciascia’s essays. After an introduction that aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the various aspects that memory studies have developed in the contemporary historical- cultural context, this work focuses on two of the author’s many enquiry- novels which are particularly pertinent to Sciascia’s concept of memory, in terms of content and of form: "Il teatro della memoria" [The Theatre of Memory] (1981) and "The Moro Affair" (1978). The individual and comparative reading of these novels aims to highlight in particular historical-literary references in the texts. These are structured in levels and layers of memory, which, in Sciascia’s works, contribute to interpreting and criticising the narrated events.