2023-11-25 17:00:08
Pietrangelo Buttafuoco in Turin, in 2023. ROBERTO GANDOLA/OPALE.PHOTO
Child of the fascist movement
Officially designated on November 14, this man of letters marked by the extreme right will, in March 2024, take the helm of the Venice Biennale, the organizing foundation of the Mostra du Cinema, and other events of international scope (contemporary art , dance, music…). Born in 1963 in Catania, Sicily, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco’s uncle was Antonino Buttafuoco, a deputy for the Italian Social Movement (MSI), founded in 1946 on the ruins of Mussolini’s National Fascist Party. The boy climbs the ranks of the MSI youth movement, then the party, to end up elected to its central committee. In 1993, at the age of 30, he turned to journalism and became a chameleon: after starting at Century of Italy, official journal of the MSI, he signs both in hard-right titles and in the center-left daily The Republic, when he’s not playing television host. With politics, culture has become his favorite subject.
Non-conformist intellectual
In 2005, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco published The dragon’s eggs (“Dragon’s Eggs”, untranslated), first novel which will be shortlisted for the prestigious Campiello Prize. Another literary feat: in 2015, he participated in the creation of La nave di Teseo, a publishing house imagined by Umberto Eco, a figure of the left. Author of around fifteen works, his range ranges from sophisticated “theological thrillers” to sharp political portraits. In Salvini and/or Mussolini (“Salvini and/or Mussolini”, 2020, untranslated), he compares the Duce to Rita Hayworth, when his heir, the figure of the League Matteo Salvini would only be a muse Playboy. In lucky him (“blessed be he”, 2023, untranslated), a baroque homage to the tartuffe Silvio Berlusconi, it summons Molière, Shakespeare and Goldoni. What could be more natural for the man who has managed the Teatro Stabile d’Abruzzo since 2019, in L’Aquila, in the center of the country.
Sicilian converted to Islam
If Pietrangelo Buttafuoco reveals almost nothing about his private life, he let it leak in 2015 that he had converted to Islam and asked in one of his books that he be called Giafar al-Siqili (“Jafar the Sicilian”). “Sicily’s identity is brazenly Islamic,” he wrote. Unacceptable for the president of Fratelli d’Italia Giorgia Meloni, who then opposes his candidacy for the presidency of the region, proposed by Matteo Salvini. “Italy and Europe must reclaim their Greek, Roman and Christian origins in the face of those who would like to sweep them away,” she wrote on Facebook. Without hard feelings, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco considers the woman who has led the government since 2022 as a friend and confided in May on Rai Radio 1: “I say a prayer every morning for her to succeed. »
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