‘The greatest political interviewer of modern times.’ (Rolling Stone)
The temptation must have been great indeed to refuse an interview with Oriana Fallaci, journalist, war correspondent and novelist. There were those who claimed they never gave interviews, but consented to her request, all with prior knowledge of her work. Throughout her long and storied career, Oriana Fallaci referred to herself always as a ‘writer’ and never a ‘journalist’. With her unique style of interviewing world leaders, the Italian was never shy about sharing her opinions of her interview subjects. Twice the receiver of the St. Vincent Prize for Journalism, her writings have been translated into 21 languages.
This is a posthumous compilation of Fallaci’s seminal, historic interviews that span decades. Featured within the list of interviews is the famous 1972 interview in which she succeeded in getting Henry Kissinger to call Vietnam a “useless war” and to describe himself as “a cowboy.” To this day he calls the Fallaci interview “the most disastrous conversation I ever had with the press.”
“Imam Khomeini, you always talk about the West in hard or critical terms. All of your judgments make it seem as though you view us as champions of every ugliness, every perversity. And yet the West took you in when you were in exile, and took in many of your collaborators, many of whom actually studied in the West. Many studied free of charge, with scholarships. Don’t you think that there might be something good in us?”
Imagine that? A journalist with a point of view.
Fallaci’s point of view is what always set her apart from the pack. To say that she was a feminist would be grossly underrepresenting the colors on her palette. In hindsight, the parallel that Fallaci manages to draw in her interviews with the then-current world affairs is nothing short of fascinating. It’s also interesting to note that the only dictator portrayed here as a genuine madman – Muammar el-Qadaffi – is the only one who still remains in power, some thirty years after these interviews were conducted!
“Were I suddenly granted the power to assemble the greatest dinner party in history, Oriana Fallaci would most certainly occupy a seat at the table…” New York Journal of Books- Review
By Oriana Fallaci
