Sciascia Leonardo — The Day of the Owl [551]

I took a whole year, from one summer to the next, to shorten this one, not working at it constantly of course, but side by side with quite other activities and preoccupations. What I hoped to achieve by pruning was not so much proportion, stripped essence and rhythm, as self-defence against the possible reactions of any who might consider themselves more or less directly attacked in it. — Sciascia Leonardo, The Day of the Owl, 551

Note

The author confesses the real motive behind revision — not craft aesthetics but self-defence against libel — turning the usual authorial account of pruning inside out.