Beauty and the Inferno

Beauty and the Inferno:Essays

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Essays on art, politics and life from the best-selling author of Gomorrah

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 the essays in Beauty and the Inferno. 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.

Reviews

  • 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.

    Duncan CampbellGuardian
  • I feel humble, almost insignificant, faced with the dignity and the courage ofthe writer and journalist Roberto Saviano, the man who has mastered the art of living.

    José Saramago
  • We must thank Roberto Saviano for having returned to literature the ability to open eyes and minds.

    Mario Vargas Llosa