The Plague-Sower

``I visit myself as a foreign tourist,'' explains the narrator of this autobiographical novel as, from the distance of several decades, he explores his memories of two years spent undergoing treatment for tuberculosis at a Palermo sanitarium just after World War II. Guiding the reader through a haunting landscape of doom, Bufalino invokes the horrors of wartime to convey the hopelessness of the patients, who come to know each other ``before our lead-sealed freight-car arrives at the depot of its destination.'' The narrator chronicles his relationships with a friend and with an enigmatic lover, questioning the vagaries of chance that fate his recovery and their demises. Elegant and arresting, the writing moves seamlessly beyond the particularity of individual experience to confront the mysteries around which our lives ebb and flow. This first English translation of the author's work, fluid and supple, retains the luster for which this novel received Italy's Campiello Prize. A glossary amplifies the many references to Italian literature and culture. Introduction not seen by PW. (October)