Interviews From The Short Century

Wang Dan (#litres_trial_promo)

Zhang Liang (#litres_trial_promo)

Stanley Ho (#litres_trial_promo)

Palden Gyatso (#litres_trial_promo)

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (#litres_trial_promo)

Cardinal (Jaime) Sin (#litres_trial_promo)

Võ Nguyên Giáp (#litres_trial_promo)

Sergio Corsini (#litres_trial_promo)

Macram Max Gassis (#litres_trial_promo)

Men Songzhen (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

Notes (#litres_trial_promo)

About the author

By the same author:

Il Male inutile

I Cannibali di Mao

Cristo si è fermato a Shingo

Acteal

On board a US Army helicopter, mid-mission

Marco Lupis is a journalist, photojournalist and author who has worked as La Repubblica ’s Hong Kong correspondent.

Born in Rome in 1960, he has worked as a special and foreign correspondent the world over, but mainly in Latin America and the Far East, for major Italian publications ( Panorama , Il Tempo , Corriere della Sera , L’Espresso and La Repubblica ) and the state-owned broadcaster RAI. Often posted to war zones, Marco was one of the few journalists to cover the massacres in the wake of the declaration of Timor-Leste’s independence, the bloody battles between Christians and Muslims in the Maluku Islands, the Bali bombings and the SARS epidemic in China. He covered the entire Asia-Pacific region, stretching from Hawaii to the Antarctic, for over a decade. Marco has interviewed many of the world’s most prominent politicians, particularly from Asia, including the Burmese Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto. His articles, which often decry human rights abuses, have also appeared in daily newspapers in Spain, Argentina and the United States .

Marco Lupis lives in Calabria.

INTERVIEWS FROM THE SHORT CENTURY

INTERVIEWS

from the Short Century

Marco Lupis

Close encounters with leading 20th century figures from the worlds of politics,

culture and the arts

Translated by Andrew Fanko

Tektime

LITERARY PROPERTY RESERVED

Copyright © 2017 by Marco Lupis Macedonio Palermo di Santa Margherita

All rights reserved to the author

interviste@lupis.it

www.marcolupis.com (http://www.marcolupis.com)

First Italian edition 2017

© Tektime 2018

ISBN: 9788873043607

This work is protected by copyright.

Any unauthorised duplication, even of part of this work, is strictly forbidden.

The journalist is the historian of the moment

Albert Camus

For Francesco, Alessandro and Caterina

Introduction

Tertium non datur

As I walked briskly along Corso Venezia towards the San Babila theatre on an autumnal day in Milan back in October 1976, I was about to conduct my very first interview.

I was sixteen years old, and together with my friend Alberto I was hosting a radio show for young people called “Spazio giovani” on one of Italy's earliest privately owned stations, Radio Milano Libera .

These were incredible times, when it seemed as though anything could happen, and frequently it did. Marvellous times. Horrible times. These were the anni di piombo [the Years of Lead], the years of youth protest, anarchy, strikes in schools and demonstrations that inevitably ended in violence. These were years of hope, filled with a cultural fervour so vibrant and all-consuming that it drew you in and threatened to explode. These were years of young people fighting and being killed, sometimes on the left and sometimes on the right. These were simpler times: you were either on one side or the other. Tertium non datur.

But above all, these were times when every one of us felt, and often knew, we had the power to change things. To – in our own small way – make a difference .