MORE THAN 185,000 people, including Nobel prizewinners Mikhail Gorbachev, Günter Grass and Lech Walesa, writers Ian McEwan, Martin Amis and Claudio Magris, as well as film directors Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee and Nanni Moretti, have signed a petition of solidarity with writer Roberto Saviano, author of bestseller Gomorrah, an exposé of the Neapolitan Mafia, the Camorra, writes Paddy Agnew
The solidarity petition for Saviano is to be found on the website of Rome daily La Repubblica (www.repubblica.it), a paper with which the 29-year-old Neapolitan writer often collaborates. The movement in favour of Saviano was prompted by an open letter to the newspaper from six Nobel prizewinners - Mikhail Gorbachev, Dario Fo, Günter Grass, Orhan Pamuk, Desmond Tutu and Rita Levi Montalcini - written in response to reports that the writer might leave Italy because of threats on his life by the Camorra.
Last week, La Repubblica reported that a senior camorrista turned state witness had recently informed his police contacts the Camorra intended to kill Saviano by the end of the year.
The informant claimed the Camorra, in particular the Casalesi organised crime family, was displeased with the publicity generated both by his book and the film version, recently released in Ireland. Gomorrah won an award at the Cannes film festival last May, and has been selected to represent Italy in the foreign language film category at next year's Academy Awards.
Saviano has lived under 24-hour police protection for the past two years following publication of his book, a gripping and hard-hitting account of the campaign of ferocious violence under which Camorra godfathers run a "business" empire that includes drug trafficking, public works building contracts, prostitution rings, dumping of toxic waste on agricultural land and control over much of Campania's rubbish collection.
In their open letter, the Nobel prizewinners called on the Italian state and authorities to do all in their power to protect Saviano, saying his case had become a "problem for democracy, a problem that concerns us all". Both state president Giorgio Napolitano and prime minister Silvio Berlusconi added their voices to the appeal, with open letters of support to La Repubblica.
In recent days, other public figures such as hostage victim Ingrid Betancourt, film directors Spike Lee, Arthur Penn and Milos Forman, and writers Ian McEwan, Martin Amis and Patrick McGrath have all signed the appeal.
Public readings from the book have been taking place all over Italy as well as on radio and television. In a front-page article for La Repubblica, Saviano expressed his profound gratitude for the solidarity shown him. "In these last two years, I've often thought that the hardest thing was that there was no one out there, waiting for me. Now, thanks to the signatures of thousands of citizens, I know that this is not so."