The Moro Affair - (New York Review Books Classics) by Leonardo Sciascia (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

On March 16, 1978 Aldo Moro, a former Prime Minister of Italy, was ambushed in Rome. Within three minutes the gang killed his escort and bundled Moro into one of three getaway cars. An hour later the terrorist group the Red Brigades announced that Moro was in their hands; on March 18 they said he would be tried in a "people's court of justice." Seven weeks later Moro's body was discovered in the trunk of a car parked in the crowded center of Rome.

The Moro Affair presents a chilling picture of how a secretive government and a ruthless terrorist faction help to keep each other in business.

Also included in this book is "The Mystery of Majorana," Sciascia's fascinating investigation of the disappearance of a major Italian physicist during Mussolini's regime.

Review Quotes

"A brilliant examination of the nature of rhetoric and power."
-- Sunday Times (London)

"A posthumous tribute to a politician whose compromising, deal-making politics Sciascia had always abhorred."
-- Adrian Lyttleton

"The Moro Affair is Sciascia's burning, obsessive effort to make sense of Moro's fate."
-- The Nation

About the Author

Leonardo Sciascia (1921-1989) was born in Racamulto, Sicily. Starting in the 1950s, he established himself in Italy as a novelist and essayist, and also as a controversial commentator on political affairs. Among his many other books are Salt on the Wound, a biography of a Sicilian town, The Council of Egypt, an historical novel, and Todo Modo, a book in a genre that Sciascia could be said to have invented: the metaphysical mystery.

Peter Robb is the author of Midnight in Sicily, which centers around the trial of notorious Sicilian mafiosi, as well as M: The Man Who Became Caravaggio.