Roberto Saviano: "Gomorrah" doesn't defame Napoli

Roberto Saviano is a courageous Italian journalist whose groundbreaking book on organized crime in Napoli (Naples) Italy and its international reach has made him, in the words of Sir Salman Rushdie "in greater danger than [Mr. Rushdie] ever was."

Saviano's book (also adapted into a film), which seems at the forefront of the New Italian Epic (NIE) literary movement, has done more than ruffle feathers or upset the apple cart - it has made him a target of organized crime, requiring him to live under round-the-clock security protection.

Today, Saviano answered accusations that his book had defamed Napoli by its portrayal of the reach of organized crime into everyday life, often with devastating and fatal effects. Based on my doggerel translation of a section of the online interview, Saviano indicates that Gomorrah was an attempt to look at crime internationally through the lens of his hometown. The worst part is to hear that at I defamed Napoli with my book ', says Saviano. 'In reality' the book looks at the world through Naples. His book is 'a form of resistance, of testimony that comes from knowing that you can fight crime'. According to Saviano, the point is that there is a fundamental need to speak out and fight against crime because. Crime can't be accepted just because it exists."

The New Italian Epic is a literary movement in Italy that seems to dig much deeper than America's "New Journalism" of the 70s, dealing with issues of politics, ethics, more profound social issues and conditions with life and death implications, such as organized crime, compared to the largely cultural studies of Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese (although the late Norman Mailer, as always, remains an exception).

Roberto Saviano has taken a profound step in challenging organized crime which, he suggests, is not just deeply rooted in his home town, but which has spread its influence around the world, including the highest most visible peaks of celebrity, wealth and media culture.

--Brooklyn Beat
Article (via Yahoo - Italia)from Italian news service ANSA here:

http://it.notizie.yahoo.com/10/20090602/tso-saviano-non-ho-diffamato-napoli-ecf2551.html

Wikipedia on Roberto Saviano: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Saviano

A reflection on "Gomorrah" in the context of the New Italian Epic [The Wu Ming Foundation]:
http://www.wumingfoundation.com/english/outtakes/NIE_have_to_be_the_parents.htm

The Kool-Aid Kid: Richard Wolffe on the 2008 Election

100 days not withstanding, I guess we have crossed a threshold of sorts as the journalists and pundits have had time to digest and produce reportage and analysis on the 2008 election. The irrepressible Richard Wolffe, of Newsweek and MSNBC, has a new book on the campaign coming out shortly that includes some choice nuggets.

No matter where you were early in the primary period, if you were a Dem, by the fall, everyone was boarding the Hope Express. But as Mr. Wolffe's book shows, that was not always the case. One choice nugget from the book that should bring back memories from the primary campaign:

Rendell Drinks The Obama Kool-Aid — Literally

After Obama locked up the nomination, Pennsylvania Gov. and ardent Clinton supporter Ed Rendell got a note from an Obama supporter attached to a can of Kool-Aid telling him to drink up.

So the next day at a Philadephla fundraiser for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, the ever-demonstrative governor poured it into a glass of water and proclaimed: "Now I feel that Senator Obama is the most wonderful person ever to have lived in the United States of America. The smartest, most sensitive most decent and honorable man. Now I understand what you guys have been feeling for the last six months."

Politico article here: http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=9F33A169-18FE-70B2-A8EE1E9062F808C8