The Case of Tony Hillerman: An Interview

Abstract

This interview with Tony Hillerman took place in December 1990, in our old home in Albuquerque. It was the first time we met. After that I often visited him in his beautiful new home in North Valley. We became friends. I taught his work at the University of Florence, supervised graduation theses on his novels and their critical reception, reviewed his translations into Italian, and wrote and lectured on his role in the development of American mystery writing. We often talked of having him and his wife, Marie, come visit us in Florence a plan that regretfully never materialized. The last time I saw him, on November 30, 2007, we discussed the possibility of my translating his memoirs of World War II into Italian. In the course of later phone calls, he sadly admitted that, due to his failing health, he was having increasing difficulties in working on this as well as other projects. I will always bitterly regret that, for some stupid reason, on October 25, 2008, 1 postponed calling him until the next day. For the next day Tony was no more. This interview the first of many conversations we had in almost two decades of friendship has never appeared in English. I offer it in its original form and in its entirety, as a belated adieu to an extraordinary storyteller and a marvelous man.