The Narco Empire, Roberto Saviano

The Narco Empire, How the criminal economy became the most important and thriving economy in the world

Wednesday 8 February 2023 | 15:00-16:30

>Amphitheater Chapsal, 27 rue Saint-Guillaume

Watch the replay:

An exceptional presentation by Roberto Saviano, author of the international best seller "Gommora" and specialist of organized crime, about:

“The criminal economy is able to condition the performance of the legal one. Its areas of interest are smuggling, arms, drug, human and toxic waste trafficking. The rules of the game and competitiveness are increasingly measured on the ability to profit and tax avoidance. The criminal economy, able to evolve very fast, traces the path for the legal economy, so that it is more and more difficult to find a border between one and the other. And whilst there are important differences between the world's criminal organizations. Yet, despite the differences, the mafias, at all latitudes, pay attention to three aspects: implement their military segment to consolidate their capacity for blackmail and domination, protect consensus in their territory of origin and recycle in the legal economy. Telling and deepening knowledge about these dynamics, as claimed by Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellini, the two magistrates killed by Cosa Nostra in 1992, means creating antibodies in society for a real fight against criminal organizations that is not only repressive, but also and above all cultural.”

A question and answer session with the audience chaired by Arancha González, Dean of the Paris School of International Affairs, will follow the presentation.

The event will be held in Italian with simultaneous translation to English.

This event is co-sponsored by the Paris School of International Affairs and by the Writing and Rhetoric Centre.

Guest Speaker Biography:

Roberto Saviano (Naples 1979) is an Italian writer, essayist, journalist, and screenwriter. In his writings he uses literature and investigative reporting to talk about organized crime all over the world. Roberto Saviano is the author of the international bestsellers Gomorra: A Personal Journey, which has been translated into more than 40 languages, and ZeroZeroZero, which was chosen by Lire as the best work of reportage in 2014. Gomorrah was adapted into a 2008 film that won the Grand Prix at Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for a Golden Globe. It was also made into a critically acclaimed television series with worldwide distribution. In 2016 he wrote a novel about baby gangs, The Piranhas, which was adapted into a prize-winning film at Berlinale. His last book is about Giovanni Falcone, the judge killed by Cosa Nostra in 1992. Saviano’s journalism has been widely published. 

He has been living under police protection since October 2006, following threats received from the criminal organizations that he had denounced in his reporting. In 2008 he was invited, together with Salman Rushdie, to hold a speech about freedom of expression at the Nobel Prize Academy and in 2011, he was awarded the PEN Pinter International Writer of Courage Award.