Roberto Saviano's Gomorrah exposing the Neapolitan Mafia known as the Camorra has been an international bestseller, adapted into an award-winning movie by Matteo Garrone, relied upon by law enforcement and drawn the ire of criminal thugs, and Geoff Andrews identifies five reasons why Saviano's work is shaking the world:
* it is written by someone brought up in the Casal di Principe neighbourhood of the Casalesi, one of the most violent of the clans making up the Camorra - the mafia in this region of Italy
* it is uncompromising in its denunciation of the Camorra's brutality
* it makes clear the global reach of the Camorra, an organisation with business interests now extend across many industries and several continents
* it provides a cutting, critical insight into deep-rooted problems in Naples (Napoli) and the inability of the Italian state to address them
* it is the most significant of a growing number of examples in modern Italy of an artist leading the way in challenging power and exposing corruption - by an author still under 30, now facing threats to his life and under twenty-four-hour police protection.
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