The Last Leopard
 David Gilmour
 A biography of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, the last Prince of the Sicilian Lampedusa family.
 Format: Paperback
 ISBN: 9780955010514

 Area of interest: Italy
 Genre:  Biography

 Date of first publication: 2007
 Eland publication date: May 1, 2007
 Price: £12.99

     

David Gilmour's biography of Giuseppe di Lampedusa unearths the life story of the creator of The Leopard, one of the great novels of the twentieth century. A book whose imagery, once tasted, haunts the reader for ever, The Leopard describes the golden era of nineteenth-century Sicily in all its sensual, fading, aristocratic glory. But beneath the surface lurk Sicily's millennial contagions - corruption, brutality and inequality. Who wrote this masterpiece, this work of art? The answer is as unlikely as one might hope. A fascinating meditation on what it is that makes a writer.