Sicily is the gateway between Europe, Africa and the East, standing at the crossroads of the Mediterranean. In this riveting, rich history Jamie Mackay peels away the layers of this most mysterious of islands. This story finds its origins in ancient myth, before guiding us through two thousand years of reinvention, in both conquest and resistance. Mackay take the reader from its ancient amphitheatres, to Arab gardens and Baroque Cathedrals, as well as the island's great literature, like Giuseppe di Lampedusa's masterpiece The Leopard. In its modern era, Sicily has been the site of revolution, Cosa Nostra and, in the twenty-first century, the epicentre of the refugee crisis. The Invention of Sicily is a dazzling introduction to the island, its history and its people.