For eight years, the journalist Roberto Saviano has faced constant threat of death for exposing the secrets of the Naples mafia in his book Gomorrah. Is the price of life under armed guard too much for a writer to pay?As a young writer growing up in Caserta, a suburb of Naples, I felt myself getting more and more angry. There was a war going on between two mafia clans for control of the territory, and violence between them spilled into the streets. I wanted to tell the world what this war zone was like: the victims’ families tearing their clothes, the stink of piss from a man who knew he was going to die and couldn’t control his fear, people shot in the street because they looked like the intended victim. I got to know the workers in industries run by the Camorra. I got to know the messengers, the look-outs who worked for the clan. I read court records, news reports, trial transcripts. I pulled their stories together, the stories of my neighbourhood, and published a book called Gomorrah. Something about it touched a nerve. It became an instant bestseller – so many people bought it that the Camorra couldn’t ignore it.Not long after the book came out in 2006, someone left a leaflet in my mother’s postbox. I was living in Naples, but she was still in Caserta. It showed a photograph of me, with a pistol to my head, and the word “Condemned”. Soon afterwards, I was invited to give an address at a gala to inaugurate the new school year in the town of Casal di Principe, home of... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2015-01-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Fri, 25/03/2011 - 11:56 Sceptre is to publish a début novel-in-verse which promises to put an end to one of the greatest literary mysteries, that of whether playwright Christopher Marlowe wrote Shakespeare's plays. Publishing director Carole... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Hodder & Stoughton has acquired the account of the life of "real life Charlotte Gray". Pearl Witherington was the only female agent in the Special Operations Executive to run her own network in France during the second world war. Hodder non-fiction publisher... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-01-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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