On Persephones's Island, a Sicilian Journal

Mary Taylor Simeti

Penguin Travel Library, softcover.

Garden of Persephone, Mafia stronghold, paradise under the shadow of Etna - in this marvellous journal Sicily is discovered as all these and more.

Mary Taylor Simeti came to Sicily twenty-five years ago for a brief trip but stayed on, married a professor at the university of Palermo and has since spent the winters there and the scorching-hot summers at their family farm on the hills. Redolent with the scents of fruit, warm bread and olives, irresistibly coloured with descriptions of the wild flowers and landscapes, On Persephone's Island is a journal of the changing seasons, a book full of local history and legend and a wonderful guide to the flavours of contemporary Sicilian life.

'Simeti has done a rare thing: she has written a happy book about Sicily and yet there is an undercurrent of sadness, one true to the island' - Washington Post