Report: Italian Writer Oriana Fallaci Dies

Washington Post ^ | The Associated Press

[kabar]

ROME -- Veteran journalist and writer Oriana Fallaci, a former war correspondent best known for her abrasive interviews and provocative stances, has died, Italian news reports said Friday. She was 76.

Fallaci, who had been diagnosed with cancer years ago, died in a Florence hospital, the Italian agencies ANSA and Apcom said. The reports said that she had been hospitalized for days.

Fallaci, a former Resistance fighter and war corespondent who was hardly seen in public, had lived in New York for years.

Her recent publications _ including the best-selling book "The Rage and The Pride," which came out weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001 _ drew accusations of inciting hatred against Muslims.

[happinesswithoutpeace]

It means I am staying up and having a drink to remember.

[linda_22003]

OK. I was overthinking the Puccini reference and thinking about Chinese Princesses.

[vidbizz]

It is not as ranting, more history & background, but still good.

[AnnaZ]

What a great loss. (Still, it's the exact age I would like to go at, too.)

RIP, Oriana. You left a remarkable legacy. Cheers.

[Darnright]

We've lost one of the greatest fighters of Islamic terrorism in the West. Thank you, Oriana, may you rest in peace.

There is a great tribute to her on Michele Malkin's site

"Oriana Fallaci, one of Italy's best-known writers and war correspondents who goaded the world's great and issued a vitriolic assault on Islam after the September 11 attacks on the United States, died on Friday aged 77.

Fallaci died in her home town of Florence after battling cancer for several years, a hospital official said.

Aggressive and provocative to the end, Fallaci made her name as a tenacious interviewer of some of the most famous leaders of the 20th century.

She quarreled with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, provoked U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger into likening himself to a cowboy, and tore off a chador (enveloping Islamic robe) in a meeting with Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

'A great Italian and brave writer has died who has led a life full of passion, full of love, with great civil courage,' Ferruccio De Bortoli, editor-in-chief of Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper, told Reuters."

[Sender]

May her words go on to wake up coming generations.

[grellis]

I was going to ping her, too!

Huge, sad loss.

[KarlInOhio]

Italy, Europe and the entire world were enriched for her having been here and are diminished by her departure. May her words continue to stir the souls of free men and women everywhere.

[goldstategop]

From what I've read, she struck me as one of those people who had a lot to say and who lived life not just the way dilettantes live it in books but by encounters with history. She interviewed all of the famous, notorious and influential figures who shaped the history of our world in the past century. She could be abrasive at times but you can say of Oriana, she was always truthful with her audience. She lived her life with purpose, integrity and fearlessness. I think she would like that for her epitaph. And the way she fought through her final illness has made us admire her more. We mourn her but we also know she had a good death where she grew up and will buried in her native land. Few people have given the world a better portrait of itself and given an account of the currents that beset it than the now late Oriana Fallaci.

(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )

[Witch-king of Angmar]

RIP. One of the few remaining voices of sanity in Europe. Che Dio la benedica.

[the anti-mahdi]

She grew up politically at the end when her Leftist colleagues attcked her for speaking the truth. I think she exposed the infantile Left with the precision of a neurosurgeon.

She is going to be missed in the dark days ahead.

[MJemison]

Aggressive and provocative to the end, Fallaci made her name as a tenacious interviewer of some of the most famous leaders of the 20th century. She quarreled with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, provoked U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger into likening himself to a cowboy, and tore off a chador (enveloping Islamic robe) in a meeting with Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

WOW! She must have had a soul of steel.

[goldstategop]

They say a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged. I think the author went through life and discovered the beliefs she grew up with had little bearing on reality. In the end she gave us an account of life as it was and not as we would like it to be. Quite a contrast with the Left which even now, unlike Fallaci, is the one that dwells in its own fantasy world.

(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )

[veronica]

Now here is someone to mourn. A great, great lady!

[Houmatt]

Damn.

[Mr. Jazzy]

She was a tough lady and one that I would have gladly bought a beer for.

R.I.P.

[Ancesthntr]

Rest in Peace, Oriana. Thank you for being what a reporter should be - someone who challenges those in power who need challenging...with FACTS. Your profession and this world are worse for your passing, but far better for you having been here for a while.

[joylyn]

I happened to meet her a few years ago when she was dining with some friends. She was not at all cowed by these charges but indignant that some U.S. universities had withdrawn speaking invitations. She could hardly believe that this kind of cowardice was going on in America.

[an italian]

We'll meet again one day, Oriana. I don't know if it will be in the Heaven. But it will be the place where all the people loved Freedom will meet.

We'll miss you, I'LL MISS YOU.

GRAZIE.

[Cacique]

RIP