Death threats against bestseller author

Robert Saviano, author of the mafia bestseller "Gomorra" on which a film of the same name that has been nominated for an Oscar is based, has received death threats from the Casalesi mafia clan he denounced in his book. The 28-year-old author feels imprisoned in his own work and wants to leave Italy. La Repubblica newspaper issues a warning appeal: "To whom does the life of Saviano belong? Only to he who stands to lose it? Saviano's fate is increasingly becoming an issue for Italian democracy. His life, his defenceless life in which words are the only weapon, has entered a grey zone in which the traditional distinction between war and peace has been abolished, in which the mafia can declare war on the state and in which for too long the state was unable to control the violence and restore civil rights. If Saviano loses, the loss will be irretrievable for us all."

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