A street to honor the Florentine writer Fallaci

FLORENCE, ITALY – The city council of Florence yesterday has approved a “motion” to engage the Mayor Matteo Renzi to dedicate a street to Oriana Fallaci, journalist and writer famous throughout the world. In the past two weeks, the center-left majority had postponed the debate to find its unity. Today the motion was passed with the votes of the center-right opposition and only a part of the majority members.

Oriana Fallaci was born in Florence, Italy, in June 29, 1929 and died in Florence the September 15, 2006. Oriana Fallaci was an Italian journalist, author, and political interviewer. A former partisan during World War II, she had a long and successful journalistic career.

Fallaci began her career journalism during her teens, becoming a special correspondent for the Florentine paper “Il mattino dell’Italia centrale” in 1946. As a war correspondent she covered Vietnam, the Indo-Pakistani War, the Middle East and South America riots.

For many years, Fallaci was a special correspondent for the political magazine L’Europeo. Fallaci became famous worldwide for her coverage of war and revolution, and her interviews with many world leaders during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

During the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre in Mexico, Fallaci was shot three times. During the 70s she made famous interviewes to Ayatollah Khomeini (addressed him as a “tyrant” and managed to unveil herself from the chador) and Henry Kissinger.

After retirement, living in New York and in a house she owned in Tuscany, Fallaci lectured at the University of Chicago, Yale, Harvard and Columbia.

She returned to the spotlight after writing a series of articles and books (so called Trilogy) critical of Islam that aroused both support as well as controversy. “The Rage and The Pride” and “The Force of Reason” became best-sellers.