Oriana Fallaci

Oriana Fallaci (born July 24 1929) is a world famous Italian journalist and author, renowned for her confrontational interviews and her eloquent and articulate writings.

Contents

1 Career 2 Books by Oriana Fallaci 3 Controversy 3.1 Muslim response to her books 4 Quotes 5 External links

Career

Fallaci was born in Florence, Italy. During World War II, she joined the resistance despite her youth, in the democratic armed group "Giustizia e Libertà".

Her father Edoardo Fallaci, a cabinet maker in Florence, was a political activist struggling to put an end to Italian Fascist leader Mussolini’s dictatorship. It was during this period that Oriana was first exposed to the atrocities of war.

She began her journalistic career in her teens, becoming a special correspondent for the Italian paper "Il mattino dell'Italia centrale " in 1950.

Since 1967 she worked as a war-correspondent, in Vietnam, for the Indo-Pakistani War, in the Middle East and in South America. For many years, Fallaci was a special correspondent for the political magazine L'Europeo and wrote for a number of leading newspapers and "Epoca" magazine.

She has interviewed many internationally known leaders and celebrities such as Henry Kissinger, the Shah of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, Willy Brandt, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Walter Cronkite, Omar Khadafi, Federico Fellini, Sammy Davis Jr, Nguyen Cao Ky, Yasir Arafat, Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, Nguyen Van Thieu and Sean Connery.

Oriana Fallace has twice received St. Vincent Prize for journalism; Bancarella Prize, 1971 for "Nothing", and "So Be It"; Viareggio Prize, 1979, for "Un uomo: Romanzo"; Prix Antibes, 1993, for "Insciallah"; D.Litt., Columbia College (Chicago).

She has lectured at the University of Chicago, Yale University, Harvard University and Columbia University.

Fallaci’s writing have been translated in 21 languages including English, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Greek, Swedish, and Croatian.

Books by Oriana Fallaci

• The Rage and The Pride An "expose" on Islam. Original title La Rabbia e l'Orgoglio, Publisher: Rizzoli. ISBN 0847825043
• The Force of Reason (La Forza della Ragione) Publisher: Rizzoli ISBN 0847825043
• One Man, a novel about about a hero who fights alone for freedom and for truth, never giving up, and so he dies, killed by all.
• The Seven Sins of Hollywood preface by Orson Welles, Longanesi (Milan), 1958.
• The Useless Sex: Voyage around the Woman Horizon Press (New York City), 1961.
• Penelope at War 1962 (London)
• Limelighters 1963
• 'The Egotists: Sixteen Surprising Interviews Regnery (Chicago),1963.
• Quel giorno sulla Luna Rizzoli, 1970.
• Inshallah, a fictional account of Italian troops stationed in Lebanon in 1983
• If the Sun Dies, about the US space program
• Interview With History, a collection of interviews with various political figures Liveright, 1976.
• Letter to a child never born, a dialogue between a mother and her unborn child
• So be it, report on the Vietnam war based on personal experiences
• Oriana Fallaci intervista Oriana Fallaci, Fallaci interviews herself on the subject of "Eurabia" and "Islamofacism". (Milan: Corriere della Sera, August 2004)
• Several others

Oriana Fallaci has also written essays and novels revolving around news events.

Controversy

Oriana Fallaci has attracted controversy for expressing anti-abortion views despite her sympathies with anarchism.

After 9/11/2001, she made it her 'mission' to warn the Western world against the threat, from what she consider to be the more aggressive side of Islam; this point of view was expressed in two books, The Rage and The Pride (initially a four-page article in Corriere della Sera, a major national newspaper in Italy) and The Force of Reason.

In recent years, she has received much public attention for her controversial critique of contemporary Islam. She was higly critised by Muslim organizations (in particular in France).

Another famous journalist from Florence, Tiziano Terzani,and fellow critic of Islam expressed disagreements with her approach in an open letter to her in Corriere della Sera.

Muslim response to her books

In 2003 the Union of Italian Muslims tried to have The Rage and The Pride banned in France. A French court rejected the request, so the group asked for a disclaimer to be placed in each book. The court dismissed that request as well.

In May, 2005, Muslim activist and the President of the Union of Italian Muslims Adel Smith , launched a lawsuit against Oriana Fallaci charging that "some of the things she said in in her book The Force of Reason are offensive to Islam". Smith's attorney, Matteo Nicoli cited a phrase from the book that refers to Islam as "a pool that never purifies" Consequently an Italian judge ordered her to stand trial in Bergamo on charges of "defaming Islam" A previous prosecutor had sought dismissal of the charges.

In a reversal of fate on June 14 2005 her accuser , the head of the Union of Italian Muslims Adel Smith himself was sentenced by the Italian court to 6 months in prison, for the crime of defaming religion. Adel Smith, on January 4, 2003, during a live broadcast on Italian TV had repeatedly assailed Christianity as a "criminal association" and described Pope John Paul II, as "a foreigner who leads the church and who is con man".

Quotes

• "There are moments in life when keeping silent becomes a fault, and speaking an obligation. A civic duty, a moral challenge, a categorical imperative from which we cannot escape." Oriana Fallaci, The Rage and The Pride

• "You ask me about the contrast-between-the-Two-Cultures? Well, to be honest, it annoys me even to talk about two cultures, to put them on the same plane . . . let's be honest: our cathedrals are more beautiful than the mosques and the synagogues."

• "The clash between us and them is not a military one. It's a cultural one, a religious one, and the worst is still to come."

• "Europe becomes more and more a province of Islam, a colony of Islam. And Italy is an outpost of that province, a stronghold of that colony...In each of our cities lies a second city: a Muslim city, a city run by the Quran. A stage in the Islamic expansionism." The Strength of Reason

• "People like me who have passion are derided: 'Ha ha ha! She's hysterical!' 'She's very passionate!' Listen how the Americans speak about me: 'A very passionate Italian." The Rage of Oriana Fallaci

• "Americans," she said, repeating for me something she told the American Enterprise Institute, "you have taught me this stupid word: cool. Cool, cool, cool! Coolness, coolness, you've got to be cool. Coolness! When I speak like I speak now, with passion, you smile and laugh at me! I've got passion. They've got passion. They have such passion and such guts that they are ready to die for it." The Rage of Oriana Fallaci

External links

• Oriana Fallaci journalist, interviewer and author (http://www.giselle.com/oriana.html)
• Oriana Fallaci's War of Religion (http://www.cfr.org/pdf/correspondence/xStille4.php) by Alexander Stille
• The Rage of Oriana Fallaci (http://www.nyobserver.com/pages/story.asp?ID=6881) by George Gurely January 27, 2003 issue of The New York Observer
• Oriana Fallaci: Words, Power, And Style (http://www.uwgb.edu/galta/333/jillpapr.htm), Short bio by Jill M. Duquaine, University of Wisconsin - Green Bay May 6, 1996
• On Jew-Hatred in Europe (http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=11611), by Columnist Oriana Fallaci, IMRA - Thursday, April 25, 2002 (Originally published in Italian in the Panorama magazine, April 17, 2002).
• Rage & Pride by Oriana Fallaci (http://www.borg.com/~paperina/fallaci/fallaci_1.html), English translation by Letizia Grasso, from the four-page essay "La Rabbia e l'Orgoglio", that appeared in Italy's leading newspaper "Corriere della Sera (http://www.corriere.it/)" on September 29, 2001.
• Rage and Pride (http://digilander.libero.it/september11/Oriana%20Fallaci.htm), as translated by Chris Knipp
• Rage and Pride Ignites a Firestorm (http://italian.about.com/library/weekly/aa041002a.htm) - On the reception of "Rage and Pride" By Michael San Filippo, guide to Italian Language at atoms.com.
• You Are Wrong, Ms Fallaci - by Amir Taheri (Benador Associates) (http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/113) - A critical article from one of the contributing authors of Benador Associates, a New York-based conservative think-tank.
• Prosecuted in Italy for speech crime (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/25/AR2005052501726_pf.html)de:Oriana Fallaci

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