Letizia Battaglia: Passion, Justice, Freedom--Photgraphs of Sicily [Hardcover]

Alexander Stille (Author), Renate Siebert (Author), Simona Mafei (Author), Letizia Battaglia (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 30, 1999

One woman's passionate battle for justice.

Letizia Battaglia's story, her vision of Sicily, and her fight for justice against the Mafia as revealed in this biographical monograph is as stunning as it is heroic. This W. Eugene Smith Award-winning photographer demonstrates photography's power to serve as both a weapon and a voice for the silent majority.

After years of fighting for the life of her troubled city of Palermo-as a photographer, deputy councilwoman, ecological activist, defender of women's rights, and defender of human rights-Battaglia continues the battle with the fierce passion, intelligence, and vision for which she is known.

Letizia Battaglia: Passion, Justice, Freedom juxtaposes iconic pictures of the everyday joy, suffering, and vitality of the Palermitani with images showing the effects of the Mafia predators who have controlled much of the city for so long.

Along with an intimate profile of the photographer by Melissa Harris, Alexander Stille chronicles Battaglia's fight against the Mafia, putting her photographs in the context of Palermo in the 1980s and '90s. Renate Siebert addresses the heretofore unexplored role of women and the Mafia in her essay. Magazine editor Simona Mafei contributes an essay about her work with Battaglia.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Aperture brings to the fore the captivating and politically charged photographs of Sicilian photographer Battaglia. For the last 30 years, Battaglia has documented the many pains and relatively few triumphs of her native Palermo, a city that was, until recently, clenched in the fists of the Cosa Nostra. She covered Mafia killings and suicides, the poverty of the Palermitani, and, most importantly, the maxi trials of the early 1990s, during which prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino were assassinated. "I took pictures of everything," Battaglia is quoted as saying. "Suddenly I had an archive of blood." In 1993, police raided Battaglia's studio to uncover any evidence that would link former prime minister Giulio Andreotti to the Mafia. Sure enough, the authorities found a photo that Battaglia didn't realize she had taken of Andreotti with known crime boss Nino Salvo; the trial is expected to end this year. Contributors such as Stille (Excellent Cadavers), Renate Siebert (Secrets of Life and Death: Women and the Mafia), and Palermo mayor Leoluca Orlando offer enlightening background on the maxi trials, recent Sicilian history, and Battaglia herself. For most collections.AMark Rotella, Brooklyn
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"At its worst there were as many as five Mafia-related killings a day [in Palermo]. And wherever the murder was, there, too, was a small, slightly disheveled, blond dynamo, brandishing her camera like a weapon as she recorded the carnage for her paper. Now, some one hundred of those images have been gathered in Letizia Battaglia: Passion, Justice, Freedom--Photographs of Sicily. The book is a stark indictment of life--and death--under the Mafia. Battaglia's images have become emblematic of a growing Italian anti-Mafia movement." --Newsday

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Aperture; 1st edition (June 30, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0893818054
• ISBN-13: 978-0893818050
• Product Dimensions: 12.4 x 9.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #538,266 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Staggering Images, November 23, 2006

By 

R. J MOSS (Alice Springs, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Letizia Battaglia: Passion, Justice, Freedom--Photgraphs of Sicily (Paperback)

With an impending trip to Sicily in sight, a friend lent me this staggering portfolio of Battaglia's images from the streets of her home, Palermo. She cites Joseph Koudelka (the foremost photographer of Gypsies, as far as I'm concerned), and Dianne Arbus, as inspirations for her work. If she hadn't mentioned them herself, I think they would be the names her work brings to mind; the immedicay and warmth of the former, the shock of the American. This is a brilliant selection of photos. I don't think even Sebastian Salgado(the other familiar photographic name she cites)has ventured his camera into territory which incites such awe. Hers is an impossible act to imitate or follow, a consummate emotional achievement with great political clout. Together with a re-read of Peter Robb's, 'Midnight in Sicily', and,'The Leopard', I'm at least intellectually better prepared for the trip than with a tattered copy of my Lonely Planet Guide to the locale. Robb meets Battaglia on p239 of his rigorous exegis and speaks of 'each photo(being) a shock, the accumulative effect devastating. Not taken with art, though with the strengths that art might have envied'. Absolutely!