Roberto Saviano - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Roberto Saviano is an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

and journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

.

In his writings, articles, television program

Television program

A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...

s, and book

Book

A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...

s he employs prose and news-reporting style to narrate the story of the Camorra

Camorra

The Camorra is a Mafia-type criminal organization, or secret society, originating in the region of Campania and its capital Naples in Italy. It is one of the oldest and largest criminal organizations in Italy, dating to the 18th century.-Background:...

(a powerful Neapolitan

Neapolitan

Neapolitan may refer to:* Neapolitan, of or pertaining to the city of Naples, Italy and sometimes its wider Duchy or Province of Naples** Previously a nationality, during the time of the Kingdom of Naples or the Neapolitan Republics* Neapolitan cuisine...

mafia

Mafia

The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...

-like organization), exposing its territory and business

Business

A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...

connections.

Since 2006, following the publication of his bestselling book Gomorrah
Gomorrah (book)
Gomorrah is a book by Roberto Saviano published in 2006.-The book:The book describes the clandestine particulars of the business of the Camorra, a powerful Neapolitan mafia-like organization...

(Gomorra in Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

), where he describes the clandestine particulars of the Camorra business, Saviano has been threatened by several Neapolitan

Neapolitan

“godfathers”. The Italian Minister of the Interior has granted him a permanent police escort. Because of his courageous stance, he is considered a "national hero" by author-philosopher

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

Umberto Eco

Umberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...

. He lives at a secret location to avoid reprisal attacks for his book about the mafia, Gomorrah.

Biography

Saviano was born in Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

on September 22, 1979. His father was Catholic

Catholic

The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

while his mother was Jewish. He graduated in philosophy at the University of Naples Federico II

University of Naples Federico II

The University of Naples Federico II is a university located in Naples, Italy. It was founded in 1224 and is organized into 13 faculties. It is the world's oldest state university and one of the oldest academic institutions in continuous operation...

. As a journalist, he collaborates with L'Espresso
L'Espresso
l'Espresso is an Italian newsmagazine. It is one of the two most prominent Italian weeklies, the other being Panorama. Since the latter has been acquired by right-wing tycoon and politician Silvio Berlusconi, l'Espresso enjoys the reputation of being the main politically independent newsmagazine...

and La Repubblica
La Repubblica
la Repubblica is an Italian daily general-interest newspaper. Founded in 1976 in Rome by the journalist Eugenio Scalfari, as of 2008 is the second largest circulation newspaper, behind the Corriere della Sera.-Foundation:...

, and other magazines including: Nuovi Argomenti, Lo Straniero, Nazione Indiana, Sud, and can be found in various anthologies such as Best Off. Il meglio delle riviste letterarie italiane (2005), and Napoli comincia a Scampia (2005).

In 2006, following the success of the non-fiction Gomorrah, which denounces the activities of the Camorra

Camorra

, Saviano received ominous threats. These have been confirmed by the collaborators for justice and reports that have revealed attempts on Saviano’s life, by the Casalesi clan

Casalesi clan

The Casalesi clan is a clan within the Camorra, an Italian criminal organization, operating from Casal di Principe in the province of Caserta between Naples and Salerno.Formed by Antonio Bardellino, it is a confederation of clans in the Caserta area...

. Investigators have claimed the Camorra selected Casalesi clan

Casalesi clan

boss Giuseppe Setola

Giuseppe Setola

Giuseppe Setola is an Italian Camorrista and former boss of the Casalesi clan from Caserta. Since 2008, he was included on the list most wanted fugitives in Italy, until his arrest on on January 14, 2009, in Mignano Monte Lungo. Setola allegedly headed a squad of killers, and was said to have...

to kill Saviano over the book, although the alleged hit never occurred.

After the Neapolitan Police investigations the Italian Minister for Interior Affairs Giuliano Amato

Giuliano Amato

Giuliano Amato is an Italian politician. He was Prime Minister of Italy twice, first from 1992 to 1993 and then from 2000 to 2001. He was more recently Vice President of the Convention on the Future of Europe that drafted the new European Constitution and headed the Amato Group. He is commonly...

assigned a personal body guard and transferred him from Naples. In autumn 2008, the informant Carmine Schiavone

Carmine Schiavone

Carmine Schiavone is a former member of the Casalesi clan from Casal di Principe in the province of Caserta between Naples and Salerno. He is a cousin of former Camorra superboss, Francesco Schiavone. He became a pentito and collaborated with Italian Justice...

, cousin of the imprisoned Casalesi clan

Casalesi clan

boss Francesco Schiavone

Francesco Schiavone

Francesco Schiavone is a member of the Camorra, the Neapolitan organized crime syndicate, and the head of the Casalesi clan from Casal di Principe in the province of Caserta between Naples and Salerno...

revealed to the authorities that the clan had planned to eliminate Saviano and his police escort by Christmas on the motorway between Rome and Naples with a bomb; in the same period, Saviano announced his intention to leave Italy, in order to stop having to live as a convict and reclaim his life.

On 20 October 2008, six Nobel Prize

Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

-awarded authors and intellectuals (Orhan Pamuk

Orhan Pamuk

Ferit Orhan Pamuk , generally known simply as Orhan Pamuk, is a Turkish novelist. He is also the Robert Yik-Fong Tam Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, where he teaches comparative literature and writing....

, Dario Fo

Dario Fo

Dario Fo is an Italian satirist, playwright, theater director, actor and composer. His dramatic work employs comedic methods of the ancient Italian commedia dell'arte, a theatrical style popular with the working classes. He currently owns and operates a theatre company with his wife, actress...

, Rita Levi Montalcini, Desmond Tutu

Desmond Tutu

Desmond Mpilo Tutu is a South African activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid...

, Günter Grass

Günter Grass

Günter Wilhelm Grass is a Nobel Prize-winning German author, poet, playwright, sculptor and artist.He was born in the Free City of Danzig...

, and Mikhail Gorbachev

Mikhail Gorbachev

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...

) published an article in which they say that they side with Saviano against Camorra, and they think that Camorra is not just a problem of security and public order, but also a democratic one. They also think that the Italian government must protect his life, and help Saviano in having a normal life. Signatures are collected on the site of the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.

On 10 December 2009, in the presence of Nobel Prize

Nobel Prize

winner Dario Fo

Dario Fo

, Saviano received the title of Honorary Member of the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera and the Second Level Academic Diploma in Communication and Art Teaching Honoris Causa, the highest recognition by the Brera Academy equivalent to a postgraduate degree. Saviano dedicated the awards to the people from the south of Italy

Italy

living in Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

.

Saviano contributed an op-ed piece to the January 24, 2010 issue of the New York Times entitled, "Italy's African Heroes". He wrote about the January 2010 riots between African immigrants and Italians in Rosarno, a town in Calabria

Calabria

Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....

. Saviano suggests that the Africans' rioting was more of a response to their exploitation by the 'Ndrangheta, or Calabrian mafia, than to the hostility of native Italians.

On November 2010 he started hosting, with Fabio Fazio, the Italian television program "Vieni via con me
Vieni via con me
Vieni via con me is a TV programme presented by Fabio Fazio and Roberto Saviano, broadcasted by the Italian public TV channel RAI Tre. The show runs each Monday evening for 4 Mondays, from the 8th November 2010 to the 29th November 2010.It received exceptional ratings in term of audience and...

", broadcasted by Rai 3.

External links

Official website
Articles by Roberto Saviano published on Nazione Indiana
Il Sistema Camorra, Interviewed by Arcoiris TV (VIDEO)
Sign for Roberto Saviano
A Reflection on Gomorrah in the context of the New Italian Epic , opening talk at the conference "The Italian Perspective on metahistorical fiction: The New Italian Epic", IGRS, University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...

, October 2, 2008
Top Naples Policeman Opposes Protection for Anti-Mafia Author by Irish Times

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