She compared Wałęsa to Stalin, and called the chador a “stupid rag”. She said she “ennobled journalism”

She reiterated that each interview is “a kind of debate in which there is no room for objectivity.” Indeed, she was not afraid not only to raise issues that were inconvenient for her interlocutors, but also to directly express her opinion. This made some people regret the interview with Fallaci, while others never agreed to talk to . She was uncompromising, but that’s what made her an icon of 20th-century journalism.

“Learn and go out into the world”. Oriana Fallaci started working at the newspaper to pay for her studies

Fallaci was born on June 29, 1929 in Florence and was the eldest of four daughters of Edoardo and Tosca. Years later, she recalled that her mother did not want this pregnancy and even drank saline for several months to induce a miscarriage. Only when she felt her daughter move in her belly for the first time did she decide to give birth. Oriana kept saying that she was to study and go out into the world. However, before that happened, she was involved in politics from an early age. Her carpenter father was a member of the resistance movement, and Tosca gave shelter to the partisans.

For almost a year, from September 1943, she fought with her father against the fascists. She received the pseudonym “Emilia” and as a 14-year-old girl was engaged in warning partisans, delivering messages and even carrying weapons. Apparently, she could hide a pomegranate in lettuce. In her book “Interview with Myself. Apocalypse” she mentioned that when she cried during the bombing, she was spanked by her father. He told her that a girl should not cry, so she admitted that she stopped doing so on September 25, 1943.

She was always short and petite. When she went to medical school, she was only 156 cm tall and weighed 42 kg. Medicine, apart from autopsies, fascinated her greatly. That’s why she became the editor of Il Mattino dell’Italia Centrale. She had been fond of writing since she was a child, and her job at the newspaper was supposed to help her pay for her medical studies, which she never finished. Initially, however, she did not deal with political matters. She began her journalistic career by describing celebrities and contemporary stars. In the early 1950s, she joined the editorial staff of L’Europeo. Over time, she moved from Rome to Hollywood. She began interviewing people from show business. Even then, she was distinguished by directness and fierceness.

From show business gossip to war correspondent. Her interviews went down in the history of journalism

Fallaci reported on the first flight to the moon and interviewed Armstrong. Later, she received a proposal from the editorial office to write a series of reportages, which would discuss the situation of women in various corners of the world. Initially, she refused, claiming that “women are not a separate species of fauna to be a separate topic in the press.” In the end, she agreed and set out on a journey, among others. to Japan, India or Pakistan, and described her observations in the book “Unnecessary Sex”. You can read in it, for example, about a Pakistani wedding procession, in which the bride turned out to be a little girl in tears. After this experience, she began to write about chadors and hijabs as if they were a prison. At the same time, the aforementioned publication enabled her to stop writing about stars.

On her next trip, she went to Saigon when the US became involved in Vietnam. There she went to the front and created extraordinary war reports. Although there were allegations of confabulation, her texts were read all over the world. Later, she also covered wars in Cambodia, Lebanon, Brazil, Bolivia, Bangladesh and Chile. She also participated in anti-government demonstrations by students and workers in Mexico, during which she was shot. She was saved by accident. Injured, she was left in the room with the fatalities.

Soon, she began conducting interviews that went down in history. Her interlocutors were the most important personalities from the world of politics. She did not bite her tongue, did not hide her emotions, did not try to be objective. For this reason, some refused to talk to Oriana. Saigon’s dictator asked directly how corrupt he was.

Henry Kissinger admitted that interviewing a journalist was one of the dumbest things he’d ever done. In 1972, a conversation with an adviser to US President Richard Nixon was on everyone’s lips. Fallaci wanted Kissinger to admit that the US entry into Vietnam was a mistake. He replied that he felt “like a lonely cowboy who enters a town to clean it up”.

A year later, her interlocutor was Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the 1979 Islamic revolution. She came to meet him in a chador. Her directness made Khomeini end the interview. Fallaci said there was no freedom in Iran, and she also inquired about the situation of women there. Finally, Khomeini said that if Orani didn’t like Islamic clothing, she didn’t have to wear it because “the chador is for decent and young women.” At this statement, the journalist took off her headgear, describing it as a “medieval, stupid rag”.

In 1981, she also came to Poland to interview Lech Wałęsa. She ultimately described him as “vain and self-confident ignorant.” The first question was asked by Wałęsa:

I have no complexes with generals, prime ministers, or you. I can slam my fist on the prime minister’s table, confuse the general without even saying good-bye. As for you, I will ask the first question, how much can I lose in this interview. Why are you looking at me like that?

Fallaci answered him in her characteristic style:

I’m watching you because you look like Stalin, has anyone told you that? I don’t know whether you will gain or lose, it depends on your answers.

At the same time, she emphasized that she was the one who asked questions. Later, she talked to with: German Chancellor Willy Brandt, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Archbishop Makarios III.

She has been in several relationships but never married

In the 1950s, Fallaci met Alfred Pieronim, who worked as a correspondent in London. When she wasn’t around, she sent him packages. It is said that she planned a future with him. In 1958, she became pregnant, but she knew it could end their relationship. She thought about abortion, which was illegal in the UK at the time. According to biographer Cristina De Stefano, as quoted by the portal, it is not known what exactly happened, but Oriana fainted in one of the Parisian streets and the fetus died. She had two surgeries and was told that it might be difficult to get pregnant again. She fell into a depression that eventually led to her attempting suicide by swallowing sleeping pills. Her sister saved her, and Fallaci ended up in a psychiatric clinic for a while.

As she said, she met the love of her life in the 1970s. Aleksandros Panagulis wanted to kill Georgios Papadopoulos and in 1968 he planted a bomb, for which he was sentenced to death. Finally, after 5 years of public pressure, he was released from prison. Then he met Fallaci, with whom he went to Italy. she was also pregnant with him, but lost the baby after Panagulis kicked her in the stomach. It didn’t change her feelings for the man. However, they were only 3 years together. In 1976, Panagulis died in a car accident. Its circumstances were never explained, but Oriana was sure it was an assassination attempt.

Fallaci died before she finished the book. It was released after her death

In 1974, a collection of her interviews entitled Interview with History was published in Italy. A year later, she published the best-selling book “Letter to the Unborn Child”, which presented the birth of a child as a conscious choice, not an obligation. Although the publication was not autobiographical, many people thought that Fallaci was referring to her own experiences.

In 1991, the journalist felt a lump on her breast, but initially ignored it due to the sheer volume of work. When she finally did the tests, it turned out that it was cancer. Then she decided to write a saga describing the history of several generations of her family, i.e. “A hat full of cherries”. She did not leave the machine, smoking up to 50 cigarettes a day. Work on the book was interrupted by the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. She wrote Rage and Pride, initially in the form of an article and then a book, in which she freely expressed her opinion about terrorism and Islam.

Oriana Fallaci, preparing for her death, bequeathed her book collection to the Lateran University and her fortune to her nephew. She also decided to return to the place where she was born, Florence. It was there, at the St. Klara, died on September 15, 2006. Before her death, she failed to publish “A Hat Full of Cherries”. In the last interview she gave, she confessed that “she ennobled journalism and gave it more than journalism gave her”.