[antirez]

Sciascia, btw, is one of the biggest thinkers and writers of '900. It is not really defined by his mafia-related novels and takes. He used to be friend with Borges, and was regarded as one of the top men in humanistic culture. Disclaimer: I was born in a town (Campobello di Licata) near his town (Racalmuto), but I'm not saying this because of this fact.

If you never read Sciascia, I suggest you starting from his last, tiny novel: "Una storia semplice". I believe there are English translations that can be found around as ebook or used on eBay.

[Tom1380]

It's not a typo. In Italian, we call the nineteen hundreds the nine hundreds in speech. So when we write it, we use '900s. As 900s without it would be the actual 900s

[silcoon]

Truly great Italian literature. Also “The day of the Owl” is another famous Sciascia’s book with old mafia theme.

[etherus]

As an aside, do you use dvorak as your keyboard layout? The ' for 1 typo is quite rare with qwerty, but I could see you meaning '1900s, though that becomes two characters in a short space. Thanks for the recommendation!

[lIl-IIIl]

I think it's an Italian convention.

https://areasosta.com/faq/come-si-scrive-900-in-italiano

[Tom1380]

I thought I had replied to you, but somehow I ended up replying to Antirez's original comment. See my other comment

[nine_k]

Nit: I suppose you mean 1900s, not just "'900". I mean, one could reasonably suspect that good writers existed in Italy in early 10th century, too.

[Tom1380]

See my other comment