Gomorrah

2007

Central HV6453 I83 C42 2007. (Jacket design by Aaron Artessa with photograph by Ed Gifford from Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano, translated by Virginia Jewiss. Jacket design copyright © 2014 by Aaron Artessa. Jacket photograph copyright © 2014 by Ed Gifford/Masterfile. Reprinted by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.)

New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Boccaccio (d.1375), the Tuscan poet, visited Naples on various occasions, and in his Decameron he described it as a dissolute city. Roberto Saviano’s Gomorrah is a modern account of the decline of Naples under the rule of organized crime, the so-called Camorra, a Neapolitan mafia organization. Since its publication in 2006, Saviano – a Naples-based journalist – has been under police protection. For his courageous stand, he has received praise from individuals such as neurologist Rita Levi-Montalcini, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, author Günter Grass, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Italian author Umberto Eco; the latter calling Saviano a ‘national hero’.