0:00:00 > 0:00:03Stephen Sackur speaks to the Italian author Roberto Saviano.
0:00:09 > 0:00:10Welcome to HARDtalk.
0:00:10 > 0:00:12I'm Stephen Sackur.
0:00:12 > 0:00:17My guest today is a writer whose work has made him powerful enemies.
0:00:17 > 0:00:21A decade ago, Roberto Saviano wrote a best-selling book,
0:00:21 > 0:00:28Gomorrah, which exposed the power and brutality of the Naples mafia.
0:00:28 > 0:00:32The crime bosses put a price on his head and in the last ten
0:00:32 > 0:00:36years, he has lived in a shadowy world of safe houses and bodyguards.
0:00:36 > 0:00:40Now he's written a new book about the global cocaine trade.
0:00:40 > 0:00:46Why has he sacrificed so much to expose organised crime?
0:01:02 > 0:01:04Roberto Saviano, welcome to HARDtalk.
0:01:04 > 0:01:07Thank you.
0:01:07 > 0:01:10You have taken an extraordinary decision because here you are,
0:01:10 > 0:01:16a writer whose early decision to write about organised crime has
0:01:16 > 0:01:20changed your life and in some ways has cost you an ordinary life,
0:01:20 > 0:01:22and yet here you are, writing another book
0:01:22 > 0:01:26about organised crime.
0:01:26 > 0:01:33Why have you come back to the same subject?
0:02:04 > 0:02:06I'm interested that you have described the situation
0:02:06 > 0:02:08in personal terms.
0:02:08 > 0:02:12You talk about revenge and a feeling of vendetta.
0:02:12 > 0:02:15Let us go back to the beginning and see where the personal
0:02:15 > 0:02:17feelings come from.
0:02:17 > 0:02:21Would it not be true to say that if you hadn't been born in Naples,
0:02:21 > 0:02:25in Napoli, one of the headquarters of one of the most powerful Mafia
0:02:25 > 0:02:31groups in all of Italy, things would have been very different?
0:02:31 > 0:02:33Naples shaped you.
0:03:28 > 0:03:34But what I want to get to is why you specifically decided you had
0:03:34 > 0:03:43to dig deep into the Camorra, the local mafia gangs in Naples.
0:03:43 > 0:03:45Because, let's face it, your family lived peacefully
0:03:45 > 0:03:48in the city.
0:03:48 > 0:03:50Your dad was a doctor.
0:03:50 > 0:03:51He made his life there.
0:03:51 > 0:03:53You had a mother and a brother.
0:03:53 > 0:03:58It was only you who was in the end filled with this rage and wanted
0:03:58 > 0:04:02to take on the Camorra and describe exactly what they were doing.
0:04:02 > 0:04:05Why? Why you?
0:05:15 > 0:05:22Do you think that the Camorra was and is so pervasive in Naples
0:05:22 > 0:05:29that every family is, in a way, morally compromised by it?
0:05:29 > 0:05:32You once said, "From the postman to the professor, just by keeping
0:05:32 > 0:05:40quiet, we become part of this mechanism that I wanted to expose."
0:05:40 > 0:05:43Do you feel that it has spread so far that everybody
0:05:43 > 0:05:46is somehow corrosively connected?
0:07:18 > 0:07:21Let's think back ten years to your decision to write.
0:07:21 > 0:07:24You say that your book, Gomorrah, is full of graphic stories
0:07:24 > 0:07:30and detail of how the Camorra in Napoli worked.
0:07:30 > 0:07:33And you went into real detail, you named names.
0:07:33 > 0:07:38It seems to me that you must have been aware that writing that book
0:07:38 > 0:07:41and having it published not just in Italy but around the world
0:07:41 > 0:07:45was going to create a massive problem for you.
0:08:18 > 0:08:21Well, you have had to live with the decisions you took then
0:08:21 > 0:08:26for the last ten years and it seems to me that you are now a man
0:08:26 > 0:08:28who is filled with conflicting, difficult feelings, and quite
0:08:28 > 0:08:29a lot of regret.
0:08:29 > 0:08:34You have said that the impact of having the death threat
0:08:34 > 0:08:37upon you is not just about you, it is about your mother
0:08:37 > 0:08:41and your father and your family as well, and you say that you can
0:08:41 > 0:08:46never forgive yourself for the impact it has had upon them.
0:08:46 > 0:08:52Does that mean that you wish you had not written Gomorrah?
0:09:49 > 0:09:51What is it like?
0:09:51 > 0:09:53I'm a journalist like you.
0:09:53 > 0:09:55Well, you are a writer and I'm a journalist.
0:09:55 > 0:09:59I cannot imagine the impact of having to live with bodyguards
0:09:59 > 0:10:04every day of my life, having every move I make monitored,
0:10:04 > 0:10:12having this sense that a threat could lie around any corner.
0:10:12 > 0:10:16Are there times when you have actually found it impossible to live
0:10:16 > 0:10:20this life and feel sane?
0:11:17 > 0:11:19Sure, and we know what happened.
0:11:19 > 0:11:20The two bosses were acquitted.
0:11:20 > 0:11:24They walked free from the court.
0:11:26 > 0:11:29You spoke, I think, to Salman Rushdie one time about how
0:11:29 > 0:11:34to live free even when surrounded by security and bodyguards
0:11:34 > 0:11:38and all of this paraphernalia.
0:11:38 > 0:11:40What is the secret to being as free as you can be, in your mind?
0:12:39 > 0:12:43It seems to me the most damaging aspect of this threat that you live
0:12:43 > 0:12:48with is that you no longer, it seems, trust people,
0:12:48 > 0:12:51partly because of what you have learned in the research
0:12:51 > 0:12:55for your books in organised crime but also because of the way people
0:12:55 > 0:12:58have responded to you since you were threatened.
0:12:58 > 0:13:02You say that when you look at people now and you think about humanity,
0:13:02 > 0:13:05you see the monster in all of us, you see the shadow.
0:13:05 > 0:13:09And you hate yourself for seeing the shadows in people but you do it
0:13:09 > 0:13:11all the time.
0:13:11 > 0:13:27That must be very difficult.
0:13:56 > 0:13:58You've already suggested deep disappointment with the way
0:13:58 > 0:14:07the politicians, the big powers in Italy, have responded to your case.
0:14:07 > 0:14:13Is that in your view because Italy is still heavily dominated
0:14:13 > 0:14:18by the mafia, organised crime?
0:14:54 > 0:14:56Well, Berlusconi was Prime Minister for much of
0:14:56 > 0:14:58the period you have been in hiding.
0:14:58 > 0:15:01Berlusconi said that your view of the mafia in Italy was unnecessarily
0:15:02 > 0:15:06negative, that you were talking Italy down, and maybe quite a number
0:15:06 > 0:15:10of Italians feel the same way.
0:15:10 > 0:15:11I guess what this gets to is whether you really believe that
0:15:38 > 0:15:41I guess what this gets to is whether you really believe that
0:15:41 > 0:15:46your words, and in particular your book Gomorrah, changed anything.
0:15:46 > 0:15:50Because if it didn't change anything, it raises the question
0:15:50 > 0:15:55of what the heck all of your suffering since has been about?
0:16:18 > 0:16:23And you have continued writing, and your latest book, ZeroZeroZero,
0:16:23 > 0:16:29is about the massive impact of the global cocaine trade.
0:16:29 > 0:16:35How is it possible to be an investigative writer,
0:16:35 > 0:16:40as you are, now that you are surrounded by police and bodyguards,
0:16:40 > 0:16:44when your name is associated forever with Gomorrah
0:16:44 > 0:16:47and everything that came with it?
0:16:47 > 0:16:54How can you possibly maintain this investigative profession?
0:18:01 > 0:18:02But I'm just...
0:18:02 > 0:18:06There just seems to be such an irony here, that in a way you're telling
0:18:06 > 0:18:10me that you have more freedom to go to the favelas of Guatemala or
0:18:10 > 0:18:18the drug towns of Colombia than you have your own country, Italy.
0:18:52 > 0:18:56Would you say that, you know, having focused so heavily on mafia activity
0:18:56 > 0:18:58in Italy, now the organised cartel trafficking and cocaine industry
0:18:59 > 0:19:06around the world, you come across as a man who has a very bleak, dark
0:19:06 > 0:19:13view of the human condition and human impulses,
0:19:13 > 0:19:17and greed and cruelty, and the worst aspects of human behaviour.
0:19:17 > 0:19:21Am I right?
0:20:03 > 0:20:05But the...
0:20:05 > 0:20:08The problem with that is that the truth is not winning.
0:20:08 > 0:20:10The mafia is not finished in Italy.
0:20:10 > 0:20:13The cocaine trade is as powerful as ever across the world,
0:20:13 > 0:20:17as you itemise in the book.
0:20:17 > 0:20:24One thing you conclude in the latest book on the cocaine
0:20:24 > 0:20:28trade is that, in your view, the only way to beat the traffic is to
0:20:28 > 0:20:30legalise cocaine around the world.
0:20:30 > 0:20:32That is a counsel of despair.
0:20:32 > 0:20:35Of course, if we legalised hard drugs they
0:20:35 > 0:20:42would become more available, they would become cheaper,
0:20:42 > 0:20:43more people would take them.
0:20:43 > 0:20:47Is that really the only way you can see of ending organised criminality
0:20:47 > 0:20:49connected to the drug trade?
0:22:25 > 0:22:29I want to end bringing it back to a personal level, Roberto,
0:22:29 > 0:22:47because your life in some ways is not your own anymore.
0:22:47 > 0:22:49And it just struck me as very symbolic that
0:22:49 > 0:22:52at the beginning of your latest book you write a dedication to
0:22:52 > 0:22:56the police bodyguards who have been with you for all of these years.
0:22:56 > 0:22:59I think you say, "We have spent 51,000 hours together.
0:22:59 > 0:23:02"And here's to all of the hours and the places we will be
0:23:02 > 0:23:03in the future."
0:23:03 > 0:23:07Do you really feel that, for the rest of your days, you are
0:23:07 > 0:23:10going to live with bodyguards, in safehouses, never knowing where you
0:23:10 > 0:23:11might be sleeping the next week?
0:23:11 > 0:23:19Is that really the rest of your life?
0:23:44 > 0:23:56But you have no choice.
0:23:56 > 0:23:59But you have no choice.
0:24:08 > 0:24:11We have to end there, Roberto, on maybe that thought,
0:24:11 > 0:24:12that hope that you have.
0:24:12 > 0:24:15Thank you very much for being on HARDtalk.
0:24:43 > 0:24:44Hi there.
0:24:44 > 0:24:46We had some glorious sunshine yesterday across western parts
0:24:47 > 0:24:48of the country once again.
0:24:48 > 0:24:50These were the clear skies in Abersock, north-west Wales.
0:24:50 > 0:24:54We have had a lot of sunshine over the last few days across western