Roberto Saviano

Hyperreality-Show
„Being famous is so nice“. Unlike star DJ Miss Kitten, the Italian author of Gomorrah, Roberto Saviano has already revised his opinion about his fame he only recently acclaimed. All the more after he learned of the Camorra’s intention to end his career and life sometime between now and Christmas. For those who have not read between the lines already – another reality show is just unfolding in front of our very eyes. Forget Big Brother or movies like Deathwatch. Saviano’s show is up-close-and-personal and set against the backdrop of hyperreality.

From the outstet Saviano seems to share a similar fate of the likes of Brangelina, Katie Holmes-Cruise & Co – namely the loss of his freedom to just „be“ in public. Only Saviano’s case is more dramatic as restrictions don’t even stop before his very own neck. He would probably pray for only paparazzi trying to get as close to his head as possible for the million pound shot. But no celebrity would swap with him, for sure!

In numerous interviews he has has been giving, especially after the film based on his book was introduced at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and released into mainstream cinemas,
he assures to regret having ever written this book.
„They know that sooner or later the media storm will pass. Then they’ll get me.... I did not want my entire life to be swallowed by that book. But what can you do? It was my choice,“ he was quoted saying in an extensive Vice magazine interview this summer. The New York Times called him the Italian Rushdie.

Der Standard newspaper in an article yesterday quoted Saviano saying, in a radio interview he had given at the beginning of this week, how the constant threat is getting to him in a mental way. And of his awareness that his life could end at any moment. „I am feeling isolated since I got no friends and no relationship anymore. My life is turning into a bigger nightmare every day.“
Ones compassion when reading these sentences is hit with bewilderment a few lines further on however, where it is reported that Saviano apparently is already working on another book about the Camorra and its business of disposing toxic waste.

Furthermore his announcement in La Repubblica yesterday to leave Italy for a while seems a strange public move for a man, who is desperately seeking a way to protect his life with the whole point being not to reveal his whereabouts. Following his interviews it appears like this man is literally begging for his life using the media as a mouthpiece talking to the ones planning to kill him in the near future. And yet, in the same sentence he is calling on more Italian writers to help improve this situation by stopping being so concerned about themselves in their work.
It appears that Saviano’s biggest fear, namely the system as described in his story, has already encircled him, making him feel like a fly in a trap. Or is all this public turmoil caused by Saviano just a weird, sick promotion campaign of his for his second book – just to play devil’s advocate for a moment.

In some way it might very well be a campaign, in an attempt to save his own life, when he is claiming that it was not him who started to frighten the mafia but the growing number of his readership. Not until his book sales hit the crucial 100,000 mark he started to get worried and asked for police protection. Meanwhile the mafia apparently got worried about popular literature harming their business and decided to get rid of him.

What makes one gasp for words after having sat through the film on the edge of the seat, is the chill and sobriety used to tell Camorra life as it is. As if his book had ended with the words to be continued, it is now Saviano directing himself through living the nightmare of trying to escape assassination.

One just does not go about publishing a book like this without the thought of starting an open and lonely war against brutal phantoms. Researching and writing a story like Gomorrha, Saviano must have thoroughly contemplated the one and only consequence this might have for him beforehand: death at the hands of the mafia. No one can really tell about Savione’s intentions nor the personal hell he is going through – just because he published a book.

Savione’s personal story makes one painfully aware about the many injustices that exist and probably will keep on existing. It affects one. Too much. He is a reminder that he is in actual fact a vulnerable human being. There will always be one (hopefully) brave enough to step up against evil. Watching an episode of the successfull 1980s Rai Uno TV production La Piovra, showing the fight of a policeman called Commissario Corrado Cattori against the mafia, always leaves the way out into (hyper)reality – exactly the one that Saviano is living in, thinking that it cannot be what might happen to him.