Oriana Fallaci (1929–2006) was an Italian journalist and war correspondent, author, and political interviewer. Fallaci became famous worldwide for her coverage of war and revolution, her adversarial interviews with many world leaders, and her controversial articles and books critical of Islam.
Born into a working-class family in Florence, Fallaci helped Allied soldiers escape through enemy lines during World War II. She dropped out of medical school at the University of Florence when a part-time newspaper job inspired her journalism love. After joining the magazine L’Europeo in the 1950s, she covered war zones worldwide, including Vietnam and Lebanon. In 1968, she was shot and severely injured in the student riots before the Mexico City Olympics.
Fallaci earned international iconic status for her passionate, opinionated writing and her in-depth, often adversarial interviews with such prominent world figures as Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, Henry Kissinger, Alfred Hitchcock, Deng Xiaoping, Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and Ayatollah Khomeini. She produced the compilation Interview with History (1976.)
After the September 11 terrorist attacks, Fallaci came out of semiretirement to censure Islamic fundamentalism and Muslim immigration, notably in La rabbia e l’orgoglio (2001; The Rage and the Pride, 2002) and La forza della ragione (2004; The Force of Reason, 2006.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Oriana Fallaci
I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born.
—Oriana Fallaci
Listening to someone talk isn’t at all like listening to their words played over on a machine. What you hear when you have a face before you is never what you hear when you have before you a winding tape.
—Oriana Fallaci
Topics: Conversation, Speech
You wear yourself out in the pursuit of wealth or love or freedom, you do everything to gain some right, and once it’s gained you take no pleasure in it.
—Oriana Fallaci
Topics: Success
Glory is a heavy burden, a murdering poison, and to bear it is an art. And to have that art is rare.
—Oriana Fallaci
Topics: Glory
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