Leonardo Sciascia’s A Simple Story (Una storia semplice) sparked interest among translators and readers worldwide. The paper explores the relationships between a literary representation of the mafia in the Italian original text and its iterations in English, French and Spanish translations. The Sicilian author aptly uses the framework of the mafia detective story, where fiction and reality intertwine, to unravel and condemn the enigmas of the mafia criminal system. Through the use of a language marked by regionalisms, a specialized vocabulary and an often complex syntax, Sciascia creates color and atmosphere in his narrative and provides an important ironic flavor. These aspects present particular challenges for translators; their creative versions of Sciascia’s text, in each of the three languages mentioned, will be analyzed in order based on the year of publication.
