Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples' Organized Crime System [Paperback]

Roberto Saviano (Author), Virginia Jewiss (Translator)

Book Description

Release date: November 25, 2008

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year



A groundbreaking, unprecedented bestseller in Italy, Roberto Saviano's insider account traces the decline of the city of Naples under the rule of the Camorra, an organized crime network more powerful and violent than the Mafia. The Camorra is an elaborate, international system dealing in drugs, high fashion, construction, and toxic waste, and its influence has entirely transformed life in Campania, the province surrounding Naples. 

Since seeing his first murder victim, at thirteen, Roberto Saviano has watched the changes in his home city. For Gomorrah, he disappeared into the Camorra and witnessed at close range its audacious, sophisticated, and far-reaching corruption that has paralyzed his home city and introduced the world to a new breed of organized crime.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Saviano's landmark exposé of the demoralizing effects of organized crime in his homebase of Naples, Italy, is an incredible tale that loses its power in this long-winded reading by veteran Kramer. Droning on in a matter-of-fact tone, Kramer loses the author's personal approach and fails to bring life to the touching memoir. Uninspired and indifferent, Kramer often sounds tired, struggling to keep himself interested, much less the listener. With slurred, often muffled narration, Kramer makes no attempt to engage his audience, a shame considering the rather fervent account that Saviano manages to recreate given his relationship with a deadly organized crime outfit and extensive research into the topic. Listening to Kramer over nine discs becomes a monotonous task rather than the entrancing experience that it should be. An utterly disappointing reading that fails to capture the gusto of Saviano's work. Simultaneous release with the FSG hardcover (Reviews, Aug. 13).
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Saviano, an investigative journalist, uses the port city of Naples as an entry point into the nefarious dealings of the Italian crime network, the Camorra, which has a stranglehold on the global economy through its control of the international clothing market, art collecting, drug dealing, construction trades, and toxic waste disposal. Naples is the epicenter for the criminal cartel since, as Saviano says, "Everything that exists passes through here." At a time when Chinese exports of pet food and seafood have become suspect, Saviano provides a revealing examination of the ways in which black-market profit mongering and lack of regulations ruin workers' lives and endanger us all. This investigation, published in Italy in 2006, became a best-seller and won the Viareggio Literary Prize. It's a stunner of a book, as accessible to American audiences, through its searing style and timely investigation, as it is to Italians. Perhaps most importantly, Saviano's accusations are utterly convincing because of his undercover investigations: in the best Upton Sinclair tradition, he worked at a Chinese textile factory in Naples, at a construction site, even as a waiter at a Camorra family wedding. Throughout, he relies on the significant detail to carry his outrage: scores of frozen Chinese bodies spilling out onto a dock; the sight of a Chinese factory worker at the bottom of a well, beaten and stabbed to death after refusing sex with her boss. Through his firsthand observation and interviews, he lays bare the abuses fed by this well-oiled and well-hidden criminal system. Devastating. Fletcher, Connie --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Picador; First Edition edition (November 25, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312427794
• ISBN-13: 978-0312427795
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (107 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #284,010 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

184 of 189 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars I read it in four days. 5 Stars for courage: He broke the silence February 29, 2008

By Lincoln Han

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

If you have been to Italy, surely you have seen people who sell counterfeit goods on the street: Prada purses, Gucci belt, Armani wallet, pirated CD and DVD, etc. Surprisingly, most of them are not made in China, but in underground factories in Naples, the same type of factories that makes dresses for Hollywood stars. This is however, only the beginning of the story. This is a story of the underground economy of Naples, the desperation of its society and underclass, and the exploitation by the sophisticated yet short sighted criminals. The tales are not unlike those of the underground economy of New York and Chicago, but southern Italian style.

With my busy schedule running a business, these days it's hard for me to take some time and read a book in a short time. However, this book was so compelling I finished it in four days.

There are three big criminal organizations in Italy: Cosa Costra (commonly known as Mafia) from Sicily, Ngrangheta of Calabria, and the Camorra of Campania. This book is about the camorra.

First, to answer one of the reviewers from Australia who didn't understand why the author is under 24-hour police protection: This is not the first book written about the camorra or the mafia, in Italy or abroad. However, his story telling style was compelling enough to make the book a best seller in Italy and abroad. This brought to light the dirty and dark secrets of the criminal underworld in a concrete term - something you can identify with (do they control what you eat?), it infuriates you and something you react strongly. It's not just about talking about the camorra in abstract terms, but to name names, name places, and describe in vivid details about the people, their "businesses", and places.... So the public realize the extent of the problem and how it affects the smallest things like milk and cookie delivery to cancer rates.

Organized crime societies thrive on secrecy and silence; there is a term for silence among the camorra: "omerta". If no one speaks about it and carry on with his life, or speaks about it in an abstract term like "oh it's the mafia what can I do about it?" then the camorra carries on their activities. However, with the amount of attention the author brought, especially attention to details, angered the criminals because the public gets a real view of how the system functions and is lubricated. Hence they want the author dead. He broke the code of "omerta". That's why police protection is assigned to him.

Remember, if you dare to speak up against their interest, they dare to silence you in the most callous way - school teacher, shop owner, ex-member, judge, lawyer, politicians, it doesn't matter. The book shows that while claiming to be Catholics, the Camorra is even willing to take the life of a priest.

To the other reader who said that the author was trying to make money, I doubt the author made enough money to be worth of numerous death threats and constant police protection.

I lived in that region. In fact, where I lived had its government dissolved more times than any other places in Italy due to mafia infiltration. I have seen around here urban planning disaster, environmental disaster, and cultural disaster. While the region of Campania has some beautiful parts, it is not far fetched to say it's a third world country within a major EU country.

This book explores many subjects that I have witnessed with my own eyes: the annual garbage crisis where you can't even walk on the sidewalk, and the hoodlums and idiots who set the trashes on fire to worsen the crisis; the store that was burned down because the owner was courageous and refuse to pay the Camorra a "protection" fee; the unjustifiable number of supermarkets and shopping centers in a region where the economy at the bottom.

I have been to Pozzuoli, dined in Quatieri Spagnoli (Spanish Quarter), and it's true, many of these towns are a mess. This book helped to see what the towns are the way they are, beyond the aesthetical aspect. I didn't know about the open drug market where the Camorra test new drug on buyers to see if they die to determine the right mix. The economy is in the drain, but new shopping centers keep popping up. Will those women who tried to kill each other with guns live long enough to shop there?
For the young men, is it a choice among a low-paying dead end job, constant unemployment and becoming someone "important" by joining the Camorra? "For many women, marrying a Camorrista is like receiving a loan or acquiring capital. If that capital will bear fruit and the women will become entrepreneurs, managers, or generals' wives, wielding unlimited power." (P.141)

This book should be a wake up call to all the people of Campania, Italians and an alarm for the rest of us. It shows if the social and economic situation in a community is dire, and when the legitimate system is weak and severely flawed, even a small group of people, with their selfish and corruptible nature, can easily turn life into hell for the majority. You don't have to have even visited Italy to appreciate this book. Civil society is fragile and this book shows how hard it is to get rid a social cancer once its takes root.

Camorra thrives because the State has failed its citizens; it provides opportunities and illusions of power and wealth. To quote the book "The system at least grants the illusion that commitment will be recognized, that it's possible to make a career. An affiliate will never be seen as an errand boy, and girls will never feel they are being courted by a failure" (P. 109, The Secondigliano War)

I also recommend "See Naples and Die: Camorra and Organized Crime" and "Excellent Cadavers" to get a better look at the history of Camorra and Cosa Nostra (Silician Mafia) and a broader political perspective to understand the State and the mafia have at many times different sides of the same coin who needs each other to thrive. Read more ›

80 of 89 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars From Tiberio's Leap November 4, 2007

By Alvaro Lewis

Format:Hardcover

Behold here an unfashionable and stirring book. The pages drip with the residue of disfiguring communications left by hitmen on the lifeless bodies of their victims. I do not go in for glamorized violence and I do not watch movies with guns. Still, I turned pages of this grisly book because its message is both fascinating and urgent. The scores of deaths described are countable but only a partial number. What waste. The mafia clans of Campania, whose fractions divide business by terror, account for the fear they inspire with their omnipresent success. It is bizarre to read of this smothering and ultimately corrupting system that renovates, enriches and destroys as it spreads.

A marginal insider, Savinio here unloads the weight of his learning and the roar of his disillusionment. His book puts to pasture the works that would try to rival it as discourses or discoveries on the nature of power in society. Fans of Foucault have no idea what power is about until they have read this book. The same goes for the armchair aficionado of corporate monopoly. Much of the information Savinio relates he has gathered as an inhabitant or curious, casual employee of the clans that run Italy from the graced and volatile realm of Campania.

The first chapter on the port of Naples is likely to unsettle anyone who lives near a port of entry by sea, as it shows how illegal goods make it from sea to secrecy and to the market. The chapter called "Cement" demonstrates the relationship between contractors, bids, bias and regional economy. These two chapters alone seem to be stunning achievements. The final chapter treats the horrifying management and crippling dispersion of toxins through land, sea and air for the sake of immediate profit.... There are chapters that address the subjects of women, religion, fashion, film and clan supremacy.

Saviano sheds light not on numbers and accounts but on names and traces. In the face of such an overwhelming and entrenched corruption the only power a writer or citizen can exercise in behalf of the common good is to name the names. Those who speak the truth run mortal risk but only the brave who take up that risk protect the multitude from fear, abuse, and destruction. I commend the inspiring bravery of this author and the skill with which he unwinds the horrors of our twisted realm. Read more ›

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars International Organized Crime in and out of Italy today November 20, 2007

By Chris

Format:Hardcover

This book is an extremely engrossing read about the real world of high stakes organized crime operating in and out of Italy today. It will have tremendous appeal to real life crime fighters and mob aficionados across the world, not to mention anyone with generational ties to Italy as a homeland. Well written and extremely informative, it engages the reader in a tell-all approach of the extensive world wide implications of organized crime originating in and out of Naples today. Graphic and disturbing, it gives factual details only an `insider' would have access to. Particularly fascinating is the increasingly large part women play in the leading role of organized family clans. `The Godmother', if you will. One could only imagine a blockbuster film coming out of this information. This reader would have preferred more details about how the writer actually infiltrated `The System' but perhaps that will be a follow up to this amazing read.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the most important books from Italy in the last 50 years December 10, 2007

By Enrico Ferorelli

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Gomorrah is not a compilation of news clippings on the subject of the Mafia or better the Camorra.
It's the result of years of heroic work by a young writer that has devoted himself to the understanding of the criminal world that developed in the area around Naples .
The scope and range of the illegal activities are world wide and control the world of fashion, construction, drugs, food, toxic waste, and almost any form of commercial endeavor. The message is a portent of things to come where the claws have not reached yet. The courage of the writer has put him in life danger for the rest of his life and and under constant police protection. The valor of his pen is as great as the beauty of his prose. I can not recall any book that has moved me so deeply in a long time. The story is not only a requiem for the Italian nation but also
a heads up for the rest of the world where the connections with the Italian Camorra are blossoming: that is China, Australia, Central and South America, Africa and obviously the US.