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More copies of this ISBN:This title in other formats:Talk of the Devil: Encounters with Seven Dictatorsby Riccardo Orizio
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:Inspired by newspaper clippings he had kept about two former African dictators accused of cannibalism, journalist Riccardo Orizio set out to track down tyrants around the world who had fallen from power—to see if they had gained any perspective on their actions, or if their lives and thoughts could shed any light on our own. The seven encounters chronicled in Talk of the Devil reveal Orizio’s gift as an observer and his skill at getting people to reveal themselves. They are also, each of them, memorable stories in their own right. Thanks to his conversion to Islam, the unrepentant Idi Amin lives in exile in Saudi Arabia and laughs off his murderous past while still attempting to meddle in Uganda. Jean-Bedel Bokassa, the bloody former emperor of Central Africa, boasts astonishingly that Pope Paul VI had nominated him as the thirteenth apostle of the Catholic Church. Nexhmije Hoxha defends her husband’s brutal Stalinist regime from her Albanian prison cell and proudly explains how it worked. Paris-based Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier—in his first interview since fleeing Haiti in 1986—speaks about voodoo and the women of his life, and laments the loss of his fortune. Colonel Mengistu Haile-Mariam of Ethiopia, Mira Markovic (Slobodan Milosevic’s wife), and General Wojciech Jaruzelski, the former Polish head of state, all claim, in one way or another, that history will do them justice. By turns chilling and comical, rational and absurd, Talk of the Devil brings back into focus forgotten history and people we have viewed as evil incarnate. Stripped of their power and titles, they are oddly human, and in Orizio’s hands, their stories, and his own, are compulsively readable. Synopsis:What happened to the great dictators of contemporary history — responsible for some of its most gruesome chapters? Do they still seem as terrifying as when they were in power? <BR>An unrepentant Idi Amin lives in exile in Saudi Arabia and still meddles in African wars. Before dying, Bokassa proclaimed himself the 13th apostle of the Roman Catholic Church and talked of his secret meetings with the Pope. Colonel Menghistu defends his Red Terror campaign. Mrs. Hoxha, from her cell in Tirana, argues why the most isolated regime in the world was right to adopt a brutal Stalinist ideology. Paris-based Baby Doc Duvalier speaks about voodoo, solar panels, his women and his lost money. Mrs. Milosevic defends the wars in the former Yugoslavia and declares her love for her husband. Jaruzelski reveals his personal transition from son of an aristocratic family, to autocrat army general in sunglasses. <BR>Riccardo Orizio has tracked down these fallen tyrants and thrown a new light on the people whose names have become synonymous with misery, death and terror for entire nations. About the AuthorRiccardo Orizio has been a foreign correspondent for eighteen years, living in Milan, Brussels, Atlanta, where he worked for CNN, and London, where he reported for La Repubblica. He has covered the wars in the Balkans and filed reports from more than eighty countries. The author of Lost White Tribes, which was short-listed for the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, he now lives in Kenya. What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
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