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Elvira Sellerio, the publisher behind Sciascia and Camilleri

On 3 August, Elvira Sellerio, 74, died in Palermo. Together with her photographer husband Enzo, she founded the Italian publishing house Sellerio in 1969; she always claimed that it had been a gamble to start a publisher in Palermo, but they were helped by the fact that they were friends with Leonardo Sciascia. After the first few books, Sellerio gained a name for itself throughout Italy with the publication, in 1978, of Sciascia's 'The Moro Affair', which sold 100,000 copies. Following this success, Sellerio went on to win various Italian literary prizes and to attract readers particularly with its series of small blue paperbacks 'La Memoria'. This imprint focused on works that fell somewhere between classic and modern fiction and that were chosen for their depth of cultural insight. All of Andrea Camilleri's novels were originally published under 'La Memoria' imprint, and Sellerio also counts Gianrico Carofiglio among the many authors of the 3,000 titles in its list.