28 resolving situations, fixing things, making everything more homogeneous. Thieves in law, in short – which is the literal translation of vory-v-zakone, a Russian mafia’s term. Yes, right. Kind of good people. This was also said by Joe Bonanno in his autobiography (A man of honor, Ed.’s Note). The mafia have this sort of ideology that pushes them to move forward. Because, anyway, being a mobster purely motivated by economic advantage is very difficult. And this because the mafia is such an all-encompassing commitment that, in order to join these organizations, you have to believe it. That is, you have to believe in something that goes beyond pure profit… even if profit clearly represents another factor. Speaking of this blind faith: by studying it, or even by reading it from books, even from your own books, do you think that organized crime could exercise a kind of fascination with so-called normal people? Surely the mafias would like you to believe it. All the mafias that I mention in my books have created some mythologies about their origins. All strictly false. They are all born to fight injustice: Beati Paoli, in Sicily, fighting against the French, in Japan the same, the Triads as well. Even the Russian mafia has its own myth of origin: in its case, it is fighting against the "dirty communists". And do you think that someone could be fascinated by the mafia organizations reading your books? Well, I guess not... So, allow me to ask a different question: do you think there are some mafia members among your readers? Actually, my last book has been translated into Spanish and has been widely read in Latin America, so maybe someone who works for drug cartels was there... One of the rules I gave myself was not to have my books translated into Russian. In order to avoid an excessive proximity. These questions of mine also originate from a diffused criticism about mafia books, blamed for mythologizing it. Mafia life is partly a response to this criticism, and in my opinion it works just in the opposite direction. That is, instead of mythologizing it, it shows its cowardice and their insecurities. It shows that they don’t succeed at everything. �uite the contrary. Like what? The most striking example is taken from a book which, in my opinion, is among the most beautiful ever written about mafia. It is written by Felicia Impastato, Peppino Impastato's mother. Its title is La mafia in casa mia (tr. Mafia in my house, Ed.’s Note), in which she describes her son's funeral. Here is the scene: as you know, the Impastato family is a mafia family. Both Felicia and her husband had those origins, and Peppino rebelled against them. In the living room there are some family members waiting for the arrival of Peppino's coffin and one of them, a mobster, tells Felicia Impastato: «You'll see, there will be no one, your son was a communist, no one will give a damn». However, at a certain point, her niece opens the window and sees that behind Impastato's coffin there are thousands of people. Lashing out against the mafia. Shouting slogans against the mafia. And this mobster suddenly gets scared, whitefaced, sitting down on a chair and saying «Now they're going to break my head». This is a great lesson. It teaches us that, if we mobilize, they turn out to be nothing more than a small minority. Another thing that I try to demonstrate in my book is that not everything turns out as it should. Neither for them. One must be careful because mafia is very dangerous, but giving the impression that it is omnipotent, infallible, firstly is exactly what they want, and most importantly, it is not true. Because there are a lot of cases in which the mobsters have been defeated or deceived. So, in my opinion, the idea emerging from some stories, even from some tv ones, about mafia is, first and foremost, incorrect. And then it is an idea, an image, very convenient for the mafia itself, because what it needs is a reputation. The mafia wants us to fear it, so when it comes to ask us something, we immediately do what we are asked for. In this regard, there are some passages from your latest book that struck me: the ones in which you tell how some Cosa Nostra families find themselves powerless facing thefts, or assaults on the shutters of shops in neighborhoods they are convinced they are "controlling”. Not to mention the indifference of Chinese migrants and merchants to the racketeering demands and, ultimately, the inability to kick a vig up to Netflix or Amazon, which have now replaced proximity shops. That's right, and these stories come from Palermo, where the arrival of migrants has weakened the mafia (together, of course, with police repression). They tell us about apartment thefts not "sanctioned" by the
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