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ORIANA FALLACI

Name: ORIANA FALLACI
Author: Cristina De Stefano
ISBN: 978-1-59051-786-4

THE JOURNALIST, THE AGITATOR, THE LEGEND

by Cristina De Stefano translated by Marina Harss ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 17, 2017

Fallaci left an enormous body of work, both journalism and fiction, and the future may demand a more definitive assessment...

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The great Italian writer gets her due in this short but captivating biography.

Oriana Fallaci (1929-2006) played a unique role in international journalism in the latter half of the 20th century. She wrote, talked, and smoked furiously, and she wasn’t afraid to get in the face of the rich and the powerful. She grilled Secretary of State Henry Kissinger about Vietnam, eliciting a quote describing himself as a lone cowboy that he regretted forever. Fallaci didn’t suffer despots gladly; she called Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier an idiot to his face, and she defied the Ayatollah Khomeini by removing her head covering right in front of him. In her first book in English, Italian author and journalist De Stefano captures the sheer intensity of Fallaci’s personality, both personally and professionally, and where it came from. She grew up working for the Italian resistance and matured into a woman who judged everyone, including herself, by the quality of courage. She was unforgiving of slights in friends and especially lovers; once it was over, there was no going back. She wasn’t bogged down by inconsistencies; she was an ardent feminist who had mixed feelings about abortion and could become completely subservient to the men in her life. She hated authoritarianism but despised puritanical leftism. She was an unswerving atheist who admired and befriended Pope Benedict. After 9/11, Fallaci alienated liberals by becoming an unswerving Islamophobe. “The need to oppose fascism, of any type, on the Left or on the Right, is her line in the sand, the measuring stick with which she judges people and governments,” writes the author. Although favorably inclined toward her subject, the book is not a hagiography; De Stefano diligently attempts to reveal all sides of a complex and brilliant figure.

Fallaci left an enormous body of work, both journalism and fiction, and the future may demand a more definitive assessment of a long and productive career. But for now, this is a superb introduction to the life of an irreplaceable figure.

Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-59051-786-4

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Other Press

Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | POLITICAL & ROYALTY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

- BOOK REVIEW
THE CHILD IS THE TEACHER
by Cristina De Stefano ; translated by Gregory Conti

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Well-told and admonitory.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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NIGHT

by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...

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Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.

He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.