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The publication of the book “Agrigento di Carta. A Literary Guide to the Province” by Salvatore Ferlita—promoted by an article by Giuseppe Maurizio Piscopo on Malgradotuttoweb—raises a crucial question that goes beyond mere cultural celebration: How dangerous is it to take refuge in literary narrative when the sociopolitical reality of a region is crumbling?
-The Noble Mapping of Distress
The idea of creating a literary map of the province of Agrigento is, in itself, a culturally valuable endeavor. Agrigento, the land of giants such as Pirandello and Sciascia, and the heart of the landscapes that inspired Camilleri, possesses an immense narrative heritage. Cataloging and geolocating these places of the soul offers a profound and multi-layered perspective, recognizing the power of literature to define a people’s identity. Piscopo’s article and the forthcoming book are part of this tradition, elevating Agrigento to a “city of paper”—a place where existence is sublimated into narrative.
The problem arises when this glorification of the “paper” clashes with the assessment expressed by Ferlita himself, who describes Agrigento as a “very strange province” and the “result of a series of ideological, anthropological, and political upheavals.” It is here that the article, rather than limiting itself to praise, reveals a painful dichotomy between the ideal and reality.
-The Vicious Cycle of the Citizen-Subject-
The crux of the criticism lies in Ferlita’s answer to the question of when Agrigento will become a “city worth living in”: “When politicians put citizens first. And when citizens act like citizens—not like subjects.”
This statement, while seemingly flawless in its call for civic responsibility, risks descending into rhetoric that offers no way out and that, in essence, blames citizens for their own circumstances. The assumption that citizens must “behave like citizens” to deserve better politics is a dangerous reversal of causality.
In a reality where essential services (infrastructure, healthcare, employment opportunities) are chronically lacking, the role of politics is not subordinate to civic awakening but is, on the contrary, the precondition for it. If politics has failed to create social and economic dignity, asking citizens to suddenly transition from the status of “subject” to that of “actor” sounds like an act of intellectual desperation or, worse, a convenient abstraction.
The “city of paper” thus becomes not only a place of literary imagination, but also a place of alibi, where one can elegantly analyze social unease without taking concrete action to address its political and structural roots. The literary Agrigento, rich in characters who denounce injustices, ends up overshadowing—and perhaps even stifling—the real Agrigento, which is incapable of emancipating itself.
-Escape from Reality in the Text
Another critical passage is the reference to the classroom, which “is increasingly at risk of turning into a dungeon, a suffocating prison.” This observation, offered almost as a side note in a literary context, is in reality a devastating indictment of the educational and social system. If the school—the institution par excellence tasked with shaping critical citizens rather than subjects—is a “prison,” then the call for civic awakening seems all the more futile.
The true value of “Agrigento di Carta” lies not in the guide itself, but in the contrast it highlights: a province so rich in history and art that it has inspired generations of writers, yet so lacking in administrative capacity that it forces its inhabitants to flee or to live in resignation.
Agrigento: a beautiful and profound city when read about, analyzed, and described, but stagnant and unresolved when it comes to actually experiencing it. Does the Agrigento on paper risk becoming too comfortable a refuge, one that allows us to contemplate the decay of reality through the sublime filter of art, rather than spurring us to take concrete action to free the city from its status as a “strange” and, ultimately, unhappy province? Who knows 🤷—we’ll talk about it again after reading the guidebook!
