Anti-Mafia Crusader Roberto Saviano Receives Thunderous Applause In Switzerland

(MENAFN- Swissinfo) Roberto Saviano appeared at the Endorfine International Festival in Lugano on Sunday. This content was published on September 22, 2025 - 09:17 2 minutes Keystone-SDA

• Italiano it Roberto Saviano a Lugano al festival Endorfine Original Read more: Roberto Saviano a Lugano al festival Endorfin

In his speech, Saviano explained that his work and success had a major impact on his family. After the success of his 2006 book Gomorrah, his relatives fled to northern Italy, where they lived in hiding. It was there that one of his aunts died of Alzheimer's some time ago.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

Saviano lived in New York for several years and then returned to Italy, but he does not intend to give up.“Fight for 20 years and then let the mafia win?” asked Saviano to the audience.“Out of the question.”

“I want my words to become images for others,” said the 45-year-old, confiding that the price to pay for his life as a journalist and writer is very high. His latest book L'amore mio non muore (My love does not die) is about women in the mafia.

Criticism of the Italian media

As soon as he took the stage at the Palazzo dei Congressi, Saviano was greeted by thunderous applause.“Italy is a cesspool,” he said several times. The mills of Italian justice grind extremely slowly, lawyers give up in the fight against the mafia. The 'Italian system' cannot cope with all this, he summarised.

The journalist also sharply criticised his country's media, complaining that major investigations are increasingly being replaced by 'gossip'.

Adapted from Italian by DeepL/ac

We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.

Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.

If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at ...

External Content Related Stories Popular Stories More Global elections Does democracy really make the world more peaceful? Read more: Does democracy really make the world more peaceful

MENAFN22092025000210011054ID1110092365