Seen from the sky—which is to say, observed on the in-flight video map during our final approach—the island appears as a triangularish football being punted toward the Maghreb by Italy’s boot. It’s a pixelated reflection of Sicilian identity itself, which hovers midway between North African and European. That intersection is what brought me here. I’ve come in search of a particular idea, a local expression, a secret password into this place’s soul: mal d’Africa.

The mal refers to heartsickness, as in the feeling of missing Africa. For Sicilians, mal d’Africa is a kind of phantom continent syndrome, a sense of nostalgia for a lost homeland, a homesick longing for the landmass next-door that played such an important role in shaping their way of life.