Saramago and Berlusconi

opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Italian press has had a lot of fun with this the past few days, and now even the English-
language press is picking up on it; see, for example, Elizabeth Nash's report in The Independent, Saramago vs Silvio: Nobel laureate rails after Italian publishers axe book, as:
Jose Saramago has launched a blistering assault on Silvio Berlusconi, whose publishing house has dropped the Portuguese Nobel laureate's latest offering because it describes the Italian prime minister as a "delinquent". The Einaudi publishing house, which is part of Mr Berlusconi's Mondadori empire, has published all Saramago’s works in Italian for 20 years. But it declined to publish El Cuaderno (The Notebook), a compilation of Mr Saramago's blog entries, because it contained "accusations that would be condemned in any court". Yes, the Nobel laureate's 'blook' -- taken from his popular weblog, El Cuaderno de Saramago -- won't be brought out by Einaudi. What I find odd is that otherwise Einaudi and Saramago seem to have no problem continuing to do business with each other. (Admittedly, it is pretty hard to do any sort of media-related business in Italy without Berlusconi's grubby little fingers being somehow involved.)

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)

from: http://www.complete-review.com/saloon/index.htm