Top Italian novelist Sandro Veronesi
said Wednesday that he will not be part of the Italian
delegation at October's Frankfurt Book Fair, where Italy is this
year's guest of honour, after left-leaning author and government
critic Roberto Saviano was excluded.
The government's pointman for the event, conservative journalist
Mauro Mazza, said Tuesday that it was not a question of
discrimination that Saviano did not feature on the list of 100
Italian authors attending the Buchmesse, but a desire to "give
space to authors who have not had it in the past".
"The stupid, ridiculous reasons with which Commissioner Mazza
justified Roberto Saviano's exclusion do not allow me to accept
the invitation I received," said Veronesi, a two-time winner of
Italy's top literary award, the Strega Prize.
"This interference by the premier and her most trusted aides on
decisions that should not be based on political logic continues,
accompanied by 'Putinian hypocrisy'.
"If it is necessary for work reasons, I will go to Frankfurt as
a private individual".
Gomorrah author Saviano had a show on the mafia pulled by state
broadcaster Rai after Premier Giorgia Meloni's rightwing
government took office in autumn 2022.
Saviano has had to go into police protection after Camorra death
threats after his 2006 bestseller Gomorra, which later spawned a
Cannes award winning film and a hit TV series.
He was successfully sued by Meloni for calling her a "bastard"
over migrant children's deaths amid her fierce anti-migrant
rhetoric while in opposition in 2020.
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