The 31-year-old journalist based the book, Gomorrah, on his undercover investigation of the feared Camorra mafia, which is based in Naples and surrounding towns but has a global reach.
The title of the book is a play on the word Camorra as well as an allusion to the Biblical city of sin.
The book is touted as “the most thorough account to date of the Camorra and its chillingly significant role in the global economy.” Known to its members as “the System”, the Camorra makes huge amounts of money from toxic waste disposal, drug trafficking and construction.
Its malign influence has given Campania the dubious distinction of having the highest murder rate in the whole of Europe.
Saviano had to be placed under constant police protection after enraged clan bosses threatened to kill him.
He moves from one secret location to another, although more recently he has started appearing on television in Italy.
He was born in Casal di Principe, the ramshackle town outside Naples which is home to the Camorra’s most feared mobsters, the Casalesi clan.
In the book he writes: “Compared to Casal di Principe, Corleone (the stronghold of Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian mafia) is Disneyland.” As a child he witnessed his father, a doctor, receive a brutal beating after going to the aid of one of the Camorra’s victims.
He has said that the only thing that has kept him sane during his enforced internal exile is boxing.
”Boxing saves me from everything: life in a box, the impossibility of a love life, continual transfers from one hiding place to another,” he told Il Mattino newspaper.
His courage in writing the book and continuing to denounce the mafia on television and in newspaper articles has seen him hailed as a national hero.
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