The Sicilian is a novel by American author Mario Puzo. Published in 1984 by Random House Publishing Group (ISBN 0-671-43564-7), it is based on the life of Sicilian bandit Salvatore Giuliano. It is set in the same universe as Puzo s most famous work, The Godfather, and contains characters from The Godfather.[1] It is regarded as The Godfather s literary sequel. It was adapted into a film in 1987, though all Godfather references were removed for copyright reasons in the film adaptation.In this novel, the spelling of Salvatore Giuliano s name was intentionally changed by Puzo to Guiliano . This novel, though a work of fiction, is based on the real life exploits of Giuliano.