The professor and the siren

About “The professor and the siren”

In the last two years of his life, Sicilian aristocrat Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa wrote three short stories that highlight his late-blooming talent. "Joy and the Law" follows a clerk who receives an oversized Christmas bonus, disrupting his plans for a peaceful holiday. "The Professor and the Siren" centers on Professor La Ciura, a Hellenist who claims to have learned ancient Greek from a sea creature. The collection ends with "The Blind Kittens," the last story he completed. Originally meant to be the first chapter of a follow-up to The Leopard, it was meant to explore the rise of a new agrarian ruling class in Sicily. A new translation of his short fiction offers updated and corrected versions of previously published works.