The March of the Long Shadows

by Norman Lewis

John Philips had once loved the beautiful wilful Marchesina - in her decaying, vaulted palace everything seemed possible. But in 1947 he returns to a brutally changed Sicily - an island beset by strikes and starvation, where revolution stirs in the mountains and confrontation threatens the ancient feudal rights of its princes.Seconded by British Intelligence to report on the rise of a Sicilian Separatist Movement led by Salvatore Giuliano, Philips renews past friendships and rekindles old passions. But while he grows to cherish what is left of the island that he once knew, the politics of the modern world suddenly impinge to show him there can be no going back.

Genres: Historical Fiction

240 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1989

About the author

Norman Lewis was a British writer renowned for his richly detailed travel writing, though his literary output also included twelve novels and several volumes of autobiography. Born in Enfield, Middlesex in 1908 to a Welsh family, Lewis was raised in a household steeped in spiritualism, a belief system embraced by his grieving parents following the deaths of his elder brothers. Despite these early influences, Lewis grew into a skeptic with a deeply observant eye, fascinated by cultures on the margins of the modern world.
His early adulthood was marked by various professions—including wedding photographer, umbrella wholesaler, and even motorcycle racer—before he served in the British Army during World War II. His wartime experiences in Algiers, Tunisia, and especially Naples provided the basis for one of his most celebrated books, Naples '44, widely praised as one of the finest firsthand accounts of the war. His writing blended keen observation with empathy and dry wit, traits that defined all of his travel works.
Lewis had a deep affinity for threatened cultures and traditional ways of life. His travels took him across Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Mediterranean. Among his most important books are A Dragon Apparent, an evocative portrait of French Indochina before the Vietnam War; Golden Earth, on postwar Burma; An Empire of the East, set in Indonesia; and A Goddess in the Stones, about the tribal communities of India. In Sicily, he explored the culture and reach of the Mafia in The Honoured Society and In Sicily, offering insight without sensationalism.
In 1969, his article “Genocide in Brazil,” detailing atrocities committed against Indigenous tribes, led directly to the formation of Survival International, an organization committed to protecting tribal peoples worldwide. Lewis often cited this as the most meaningful achievement of his career, expressing lifelong concern for the destructive influence of missionary activity and modernization on indigenous societies.
Though Lewis also wrote fiction, his literary reputation rests primarily on his travel writing, which was widely admired for its moral clarity, understated style, and commitment to giving voice to overlooked communities. He remained an unshakable realist throughout his life, famously stating, “I do not believe in belief,” though he found deep joy in simply being alive.
Lewis died in 2003 in Essex, survived by his third wife Lesley and their son Gawaine, as well as five other children from previous marriages.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

British Intelligence are concerned about the rise of the Sicilian Separatist Movement and dispatch John Philips to see what he can discover about them. It is a place that he knows well, but in 1947 when he arrives the island is almost at its limit of what it can endure. The population is starving and there is political and social strife. He can almost smell the revolution in the air. Philips has a lot of catching up to do with old friends and is hoping to catch up with the beautiful Marchesina, once an old flame of his. But the pressures of the world are going to make his visit there much more complicated than he envisaged.

The is the first fiction book by Norman Lewis that I have read and I didn’t think it was as good as his non-fiction. I didn’t think that the plot was very strong, but what he does in this book is to make the atmosphere and culture of Sicily come alive and provide an account of the way that the island had begun to change after the Second World War. I had hoped it would have been more of a spy novel, but it wasn’t really. The characters were a little shallow, and there are some interesting characters in the book, in particular, the two Americans.