Roberto Saviano leads the fight against organized crime, but he’s paying a price for it.
Roberto Saviano’s father, a doctor, reached out to help a man who had been gunned down in a Camorra (Naples organized crime) shooting, and for that act of kindness he was beaten to a pulp. For Roberto, this was the beginning of a dichotomous existence of fame and living in hiding.
Saviano is the author of the prize-winning and best-selling book Gomorrah, which became an award-winning and very successful movie (directed by Matteo Garrone) with the same name, and is the number one TV show in Italy, now available for Americans. The name is a play on words that came when a priest in Caserta made the comment that the Camorra was turning the area into a Gomorrah.
To write his book, Saviano went undercover, doing odd jobs that put him in contact with Camorristas and at the same time researching news and legal documents. The book was an instant success, but it’s left him in an unfortunate situation. It’s been years since he’s been able to move freely in society.
“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 the most powerful Camorra clan, with one of the highest murder rates in Italy. I singled out the Camorra bosses from the stage, naming them publicly, which local people had been too intimidated to do. I told them they should leave. The then-speaker of the Italian parliament was there with his bodyguards. After the event, they told me it would be too dangerous to go back to Naples on public transport, so they took me with them.”
Ever since then Saviano has been living with bodyguards, unable even to go out casually for a beer, so let’s go out for him and raise a glass to his health and continued safety. Tanti Auguri Roberto! As we Americans love to say, ‘thank you for your service”.
And DON’T MISS SEASON ONE OF GOMORRAH THE TV SERIES!
I Love Italian Everything 