The Literary Parks of Sicily: Rethinking Territorial Engagement through Literature

This study examines the Màkari Literary Park as a paradigmatic model at the intersection of geography and literature, cine-tourism, and land development, highlighting the strategic role of literary parks in redefining the experience of the cultural landscape. The analysis focuses on the creation of an itinerary from Macari to Gibellina, reconstructing the narrative landscapes depicted in Gaetano Savatteri’s novels and made iconic through their television adaptation. Employing an interdisciplinary methodological approach, the study investigates the integration of multimedia devices, literary cartographies, and experiential practices aimed at fostering an immersive engagement with the territory. However, the research also highlights the risk of museal crystallization within literary parks, which—if deprived of effective dialogue with the contemporary context—can be reduced to mere instruments of tourist consumption. The case of Màkari demonstrates how cine-tourism can serve as a vector for the re-actualization of literary heritage, provided it is embedded within a broader strategy of cultural co-creation that transcends simple iconographic reproduction and promotes a participatory dynamic among text, space, and audience. The study thus proposes an epistemological redefinition of the concept of the literary park, transforming it into a narrative and interdisciplinary laboratory capable of combining memory, innovation, and new forms of perception of the literary landscape, from a perspective that incorporates the principles of humanistic geography and the semiotics of space.