The Day of the Owl (Italian: Il giorno della civetta) is a crime novel about the Mafia by Leonardo Sciascia, finished in 1960 and published in 1961. As the author wrote in his preface of the 1972 Italian edition, the novel was written at a time in which the existence of the Mafia itself was debated and denied. Its publishing led to widespread debate and to renewed awareness of the phenomenon. The novel is inspired by the assassination of Accursio Miraglia, a communist trade unionist, at Sciacca in January 1947. Damiano Damiani directed a movie adaptation in 1968.