Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #550 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-18
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 424 pages

Financial Times
'...strength of Gomorrah lies in the angry passion with which he denounces the grip of organised crime.'

Misha Glenny, Sunday Times, 13 Jan 2008
`a superb piece of investigative reporting ... Saviano is without question a winning young man with real potential as a writer'

John Hooper, Guardian G2 Profile, 14 Jan 2008
`Every so often, when reading Saviano's book you have to pause, and remember he is writing not about some war-torn African territory or former communist state, but about life in a big city in a rich nation in western Europe; a founder-member of the European Union; a favourite destination for low-cost flyers, and a country whose affairs are increasingly - and, Saviano suggests, dangerously - bound up with ours.'

Customer Reviews

An act of bravery
Saviano's insight on this deadly subject made me wonder a few times about his personal relationship with the people he so openly denounces. This is a 28-year-old courageous man who has decided to put his life on the line to cast some light into the darkes area of Italy's social and political life. When I read the first chapter, I had the distinct feeling that what I had in my hands was a truly ground-breaking book. When I read about the links between organised crime and global trade, and to such a scale as well, I could understand why Italy is in the G8 in spite of his disastrous economy and almost irreversible ideological void. Who thinks that organised crime is a phenomenon contained within the Italian peninsula, must think again. Eye-opening and inspirational.

Opening the Floodgates
Roberto Saviano is a 28 year old man, who grew up in Secondigliano, a rundown of 10,000 inhabitants on the fringe of Naples, of which 2468 residents are incarcerated for mafia and camorra related activities and the rest have simply been abandoned to their fate. It is also the trading centre through which about 80% of Europe's cocaine is filtered through, packaged, distributed, marketed, cut, and sold on. This is an unpalatable reality few outside of Italy understand, care about or are able to believe. And this little book has opened a floodgates, no less for the Italians who have always known the extent of the Camorra's corruption on all levels of italian and international society, but who, out of fear, or inability to get close, have not been able to speak about it in this much detail. Roberto's life has been largely destroyed by the writing of this book. He has had to change identity, separate from his family and lives under 24 hour police escort. But for those who live here, in the shadow of mafia, surrounded by the stink of corruption, of Naples' uncollected rubbish, of silent witnesses and a society still living in a dark middle age marked with bloodshed and hopelessness this book has opened a floodgates which may hope may finally lift the cover on a tragedy that affects not only the entire country, but all of Europe, and the world.
Please read this. The Camorra is not a Scorcese movie, the mafia is not some antiquated clichè. We live with it, and our country is slowly dying because of it. This is not a work of fiction, sadly.

The worst book i have read in years.
I thought this was a very long winded and boring book that seemed to go nowhere. It is only the second book i have been totally disgusted with in all my years of reading. Simply terrible.