Annalisa Durante, killed by crossfire in the Forcella neighborhood of Naples on March 27, 2004, at fourteen years old.
Fourteen years old.
Fourteen years old.
Repeating it is like rubbing a sponge of ice-cold water along your back." (
Roberto Saviano comments on the death of a young girl)
Around here keeping your mouth shut is not the simple, silent omertà of lowered hats and eyes.
Here the prevailing attitude is "It's not my problem."
But that's not all. [...]
The word becomes a shout.
A loud and piercing cry hurled at bulletproof glass in hopes of making it shatter.

— Gomorrah, translation by Virginia Jewiss
The structure of the fictionalized essay (or the novel-essay or the investigative novel or the nonfiction novel) is nothing new, and was already used in narratives of denunciation in the nineteenth century.
To give an example from the Neapolitan context, Francesco Mastriani—prolific Neapolitan storyteller of so-called low Romanticism—successfully experimented with the structure in his serial novels.
His growing success, his increasingly direct relationship with readers, and the end of Bourbon rule and censorship led him to use a more objective narrative in the style of news reporting that was taken from the environments of sordid characters and criminals (the dangerous classes).
Specifically, Mastriani methodically described and classified the criminal society of his time, as well as the problems of Naples and the South, giving rise to the Southern Question.
The writer defined these works studies in the same narrative thread that was then in vogue in novels from European metropolises across the Alps and the Channel.
Morbid curiosity and a chronic thirst for truth among readers caused such novels to become bestsellers.
In I vermi (or The Worms about "social worms"), Mastriani examines, among others, The Elegant Camorra, The Vagabonds and The Forced Labor.
As Benedetto Croce noted, Mastriani was widely read by the Neapolitan populace outside of the "learned and cultured" circles.

In the second half of the twentieth century, the work of Leonardo Sciascia and Italo Calvino offers examples of contamination and hybridism with the commingling of narrative and nonfiction.
Sciascia's literary production represents an emblematic case, above all with The Knight and Death in which allegorical, satirical and non-fiction elements combine in the detective story.

Italo Calvino's La giornata di uno scrutatore (The Watcher) mixes the critical essay with the short story.
Annalisa Durante, killed by crossfire in the Forcella neighborhood of Naples on March 27, 2004, at fourteen years old. Fourteen years old. Fourteen years old. Repeating it is like rubbing a sponge of ice-cold water along your back." (Roberto Saviano comments on the death of a young girl)
Around here keeping your mouth shut is not the simple, silent omertà of lowered hats and eyes. Here the prevailing attitude is "It's not my problem." But that's not all. [...] The word becomes a shout. A loud and piercing cry hurled at bulletproof glass in hopes of making it shatter.
— Gomorrah, translation by Virginia Jewiss
The structure of the fictionalized essay (or the novel-essay or the investigative novel or the nonfiction novel) is nothing new, and was already used in narratives of denunciation in the nineteenth century. To give an example from the Neapolitan context, Francesco Mastriani—prolific Neapolitan storyteller of so-called low Romanticism—successfully experimented with the structure in his serial novels. His growing success, his increasingly direct relationship with readers, and the end of Bourbon rule and censorship led him to use a more objective narrative in the style of news reporting that was taken from the environments of sordid characters and criminals (the dangerous classes). Specifically, Mastriani methodically described and classified the criminal society of his time, as well as the problems of Naples and the South, giving rise to the Southern Question. The writer defined these works studies in the same narrative thread that was then in vogue in novels from European metropolises across the Alps and the Channel. Morbid curiosity and a chronic thirst for truth among readers caused such novels to become bestsellers. In I vermi (or The Worms about "social worms"), Mastriani examines, among others, The Elegant Camorra, The Vagabonds and The Forced Labor. As Benedetto Croce noted, Mastriani was widely read by the Neapolitan populace outside of the "learned and cultured" circles.
In the second half of the twentieth century, the work of Leonardo Sciascia and Italo Calvino offers examples of contamination and hybridism with the commingling of narrative and nonfiction. Sciascia's literary production represents an emblematic case, above all with The Knight and Death in which allegorical, satirical and non-fiction elements combine in the detective story.
Italo Calvino's La giornata di uno scrutatore (The Watcher) mixes the critical essay with the short story.
Roberto Saviano