I met Andrea Camilleri twice in Milan at the Hotel Manin in the late ’90s. The Sicilian literary phenomenon was not a kid at the time. He was already in his seventies when he created Inspector Salvo Montalbano, the main character of his humorous, colorful and intense detective stories. Those books published by Sellerio Editore in Palermo were making him a literary sensation.

Today, the 93-year-old writer is in critical condition in a Rome hospital and his prognosis is uncertain. Camilleri was already a noted drama teacher at the Silvio D’Amico Academy of Dramatic Arts in Rome when his maze-like, bitingly satirical and character-driven detective stories took off as a huge commercial success.