The Fire in the Mountain

A History of Sicily, Mount Etna, and the Island's Volcanic Legacy

Helena Attlee

From the acclaimed author of The Land Where Lemons Grow, comes a luminous account of Sicilian history, geography, culture, and cuisine, as seen from the slopes of Mount Etna.

For centuries, Mount Etna has sent lava to engulf the towns and villages, terraced fields, orchards, vineyards, and citrus groves that nestle across its slopes. But still it remains home to a quarter of Sicily’s population. Why? Because Etna has always rewarded her people after every eruption with a landscape of unparalleled fertility, richness, and drama.

In this extraordinary new book, Helena Attlee combines travel writing with history, mythology, geology, gastronomy, and horticulture to tell a unique story of life in the shadow of Sicily’s most dangerous and alluring landmark. Venturing through lava-strewn fields and pistachio groves patrolled by armed guards; past dusky, basalt-built farmyards, and caves once used to store snow, Attlee gathers tales of the artists, writers, farmers, and scientists who have for centuries been drawn to this unpredictable landscape: from the early Roman, Arabic and Norman settlers, Romantic poets and Victorian geologists, to the local families who live and work there today. The Fire in the Mountain is at once a compelling account of Sicily’s rich and varied past, and a powerful meditation on humanity’s ever-changing relationship with landscape.

Buy it now in print:

Buy it now in ebook:

Endorsements & Reviews

Praise for Helena Attlee

"Thrillingly sensual, and zesty in every sense, Helena Attlee is the best of companions as she leads us through sundrenched citrus groves and in and out of history." Deborah Moggach, author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

"A richly evocative journey—whether on the rattling circum-Etna railway, on foot through the music-filled streets of Catania at the height of the Saint Agatha festival, at the crater to gaze in awe at the nocturnal pyrotechnics, or in the café, to reward taste buds with iced delicacies once made from the volcano’s winter snows. Attlee makes a compelling case that all of this culture, flavour and spectacle flows – like the lava – from the volcano itself." Clive Oppenheimer, volcanologist, University of Cambridge

"Helena Attlee’s acutely observed account of the Etna region is refreshingly different. This is travel writing of the quietly classical kind. Attlee tells great stories, [but] it is the food writing, though, that brings you closest to Sicily. Full of curiosity, personality and, above all, what the wine people call terroir." The Sunday Times 

"A scholar of all things Italian, and especially Sicilian, with an eye for the quirky and the poetic, Attlee does for Etna what she did for lemons: she delves deep into the history of the volcano and the relationship of its people to their unpredictable land." The Spectator

"Attlee writes with great lucidity, charm and gentle humour, and wears her considerable learning lightly. She has elegant, absorbing prose and a sure-footed ability to combine the academic with the anecdotal." The Times Literary Supplement

"Charming and original. Attlee has the natural storyteller's gift." Stephen Walsh, author of The Beloved Vision