Corsica has attracted writers drawn to its fierce independence and its landscapes, and a handful of books do real justice to the island's character.
Dorothy Carrington, Granite Island: A Portrait of Corsica (1971) — the essential book on Corsica in English. Carrington came to the island in 1948, fell in love with it, and spent decades living there. This is a deeply personal portrait of the island's culture, its maquis, its vendetta tradition, and the quality of life that comes from living on the margins of Europe. Required reading before or after any serious visit.
Guy de Maupassant, A Life (1883) — Maupassant spent time in Corsica and his novel captures the island's landscape and its fatalism vividly. The Corsican sections are the most memorable in the book. A reminder that the island has been drawing writers for a very long time.
Stephen Boswell (ed.), Corsica: A Traveller's Anthology — a collection of travel writing about Corsica from the 17th century to the 20th, including James Boswell's famous account of his visit to Pasquale Paoli and the brief Corsican republic. Paoli's story in particular — an 18th-century attempt to create an independent democratic republic, predating both the American and French revolutions — is one of the most remarkable in European history.