Overview

Italian journalist Roberto Saviano makes a very rare appearance in London at Kings’ College London. In conversation with Misha Glenny, Saviano will talk about why ‘his life is not and never will be his own any more’ since the publication of the international best-seller Gomorrah ten year ago and Zero Zero Zero (Penguin) in 2015.

Saviano has sacrificed a normal existence in the name of investigative journalism. After receiving death threats from mafia bosses in 2006, he was granted a permanent police escort. For the past 10 years, he has lived under constant armed guard, moving from one secret location to another. None of this has deterred him from waging war on organized crime with ‘words as his only weapon.’

‘I’m afraid of many things, but dying isn’t one of them.’ (Roberto Saviano)

He was awarded the PEN/Pinter prize in 2011. Saviano’s latest book My Italians: True Stories of Crime and Courage (Penguin) will be published 26th May 2016.

Misha Glenny is a distinguished investigative journalist and historian and a former central Europe correspondent for the Guardian and the BBC. His books include McMafia: Seriously Organised Crime; DarkMarket: How Hackers Became the New Mafia; The Rebirth Of History: Eastern Europe in the Age of Democracy; The Fall of Yugoslavia: The Third Balkan War; The Balkans, 1804-2012: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers and Nemesis: One Man and the Battle for Rio.

N.B. An interpreter will be on hand to translate the interview into English.

In collaboration with:

King’s College London Italian Society, EUNIC London, Penguin, ELF