Beauty and the Inferno: Essays
Gomorrah, Roberto Saviano’s 2006 exposé of Naples’s Camorra mafia, was an international bestseller and became an award-winning film. But the death threats that followed forced the author into hiding. Saviano was ostracized by his countrymen and went on the run, changing his location every few months and compelled to keep perpetual company with his bodyguards. To this day, he lives in an undisclosed location.
The loneliness of the fugitive life informs all the essays in Beauty and the Inferno, Saviano’s first book since Gomorrah. Among other subjects, he writes about the legendary South African jazz singer Miriam Makeba, his meeting with the real-life Donnie Brasco, sharing the Nobel Academy platform with Salman Rushdie, and the murdered Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Present throughout the book is a sense of Saviano’s peculiar isolation, which infuses his words with anger, exceptional insight and tragedy.
Hardback, 288 pages
ISBN: 9781844679508
September 2012
$24.95 / $26.50CAN
Other Editions
Ebook, 288 pages
ISBN: 9781844679515
September 2012
$11.99
Reviews
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“It is good to be reminded of the raw bravery of the Savianos of this world and to salute them for sacrifices they have made in their challenges to power.”
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“I feel humble, almost insignificant, faced with the dignity and the courage of the writer and journalist Roberto Saviano, the man who has mastered the art of living.”
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“We must thank Roberto Saviano for having returned to literature the ability to open eyes and minds.”
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“Its tone is angry and urgent … the essays in Beauty and the Inferno are in some sense a celebration of bravery and an expression of rage against corruption and cowardice.”
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“A perceptive and sympathetic critic and reader ... Saviano writes very well ... what he has to say demands to be read. Like Primo Levi, his testimony pricks our conscience, tests our resolve, makes us examine ourselves ... At once deeply disturbing and illuminating.”
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“He never pulls his punches, his message is incredibly important, and the facts he includes—such as the increase in cancer rates due to the illegal dumping of toxic waste—are like bombshells.”
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“In his essay about [Anna] Politkovskaya, he writes: ‘I do not care about beautiful stories that cannot be bothered with the blood of our times. I want to smell the rot of politics and the stench of business.’ He achieves that and more in his own work.”
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“A beautiful object, from the surface through to its depths….Saviano's confidence and sheer bulldozing coherence could serve as inspiration to all writers, both of fiction and journalism, as the path around weak speechifying and dutiful responses. Read Saviano and feel hope.”
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“Always passionate…Saviano's commitment to his subjects draws the reader in…This is a strong collection from a brave and keen-eyed reporter.”
Blog
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Roberto Saviano on organized crime and the financial crisis
Roberto Saviano, author of the forthcoming essay collection Beauty and the Inferno, writes this week for the New York Times about organized crime's massive advantage during the global financial crisis. He writes:
American banks have profited from money laundering by Latin American drug cartels, while the European debt crisis has strengthened the grip of the loan sharks and speculators who control the vast underground economies in countries like Spain and Greece.Saviano knows a bit about organized crime: in 2006, his best-selling expose Gomorrah so angered the Italian mob the author received death threats and entered police custody. His reporting from that time, he writes, found that in the years following 9/11, crackdowns on American terrorist financing simply inspired money-laundering operations to move abroad. The European debt crisis has only further "emboldened" these endeavors. Most striking, perhaps, is the close relationship between organized crime and large financial institutions:
In 2010, Wachovia admitted that it had essentially helped finance the murderous drug war in Mexico by failing to identify and stop illicit transactions. The bank, which was acquired by Wells Fargo during the financial crisis, agreed to pay $160 million in fines and penalties for tolerating the laundering, which occurred between 2004 and 2007.
Visit the New York Times to read the interview in full.