Child of the fascist movement
Officially appointed on November 14th, this literary figure of the extreme right will be the director of the Venice Biennale, the organizing foundation of the Mostra du Cinema, and other events of international importance (contemporary art, dance, music…) in March 2024. Born in Catania, Sicily in 1963, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco’s uncle was Antonino Buttafuoco, a deputy of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), which was founded in 1946 on the ruins of Mussolini’s National Fascist Party. The boy rises in the MSI youth movement and then in the party and is finally elected to its central committee. In 1993, at the age of 30, he turned to journalism and became a chameleon: after starting at the Secolo d’Italia, the official newspaper of the MSI, he wrote for both far-right titles and the center-left. Daily newspaper La Repubblica, when he’s not playing TV presenter. In addition to politics, culture has become his favorite subject.
Nonconformist intellectual
In 2005, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco published “Le uova del Drago” (“The Dragon Eggs,” untranslated), his first novel, which was nominated for the prestigious Campiello Prize. Another literary achievement: in 2015 he participated in the creation of La nave di Teseo, a publishing house invented by Umberto Eco, a figure of the left. As the author of around fifteen works, his spectrum ranges from sophisticated “theological thrillers” to sharp political portraits. In Salvini e/o Mussolini (“Salvini and/or Mussolini”, 2020, untranslated) he compares the Duce to Rita Hayworth, when his heir, League figure Matteo Salvini, was just a playboy muse. In Beato lui (“Blessed be he”, 2023, untranslated), a baroque homage to the Tartuffe Silvio Berlusconi, he invokes Molière, Shakespeare and Goldoni. What could be more natural for the man who has been running the Teatro Stabile d’Abruzzo in L’Aquila, in the center of the country, since 2019?
Sicilians converted to Islam
Although Pietrangelo Buttafuoco reveals almost nothing about his private life, in 2015 he leaked that he had converted to Islam and claimed the name Giafar al-Siqili (“Jafar the Sicilian”) in one of his books. “Sicily’s identity is unashamedly Islamic,” he writes. Unacceptable for the president of the Fratelli d’Italia Giorgia Meloni, who then opposed her candidacy for president of the region proposed by Matteo Salvini. “Italy and Europe must reclaim their Greek, Roman and Christian origins against those who want to sweep them away,” she wrote on Facebook. Without hard feelings, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco considers the one who has led the government since 2022 as a friend and confided in May on Rai Radio 1: “I say a prayer every morning so that she succeeds.” »
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