Arrigo Petacco


Arrigo Petacco was an Italian writer, historian and journalist.

Life and activities

Petacco was special envoy, editor-in-chief and executive director of La Nazione and La Storia Illustrata, and author of the homonymous monthly television program on the RAI.
He began his journalistic career at Il Lavoro, a newspaper published in Genoa, directed by Sandro Pertini. Prolific historical writer, experienced journalist an appreciated historian, he even wrote several film plots and made numerous television programs, especially for RAI, the Italian main public service broadcaster. In his career as a journalist has interviewed some of the protagonists of the Second World War.
In 1957 Petacco married Lucetta De Martino from who had two daughters: Monica, who lives in Rome, and Carlotta, living in Milan. He is widowed since 1989.
Since then he lives alone, actually in Portovenere, near La Spezia.
In 1983 he won the Saint Vincent award for journalism and in 2006 received the Capo d'Orlando prize even for journalism. Petacco died on 3 April 2018 of liver cancer at the age of 88.

Works

"A tragedy revealed"

Petacco's masterwork is the historical essay L'esodo: la tragedia negata d'Istria, Dalmazia e Venezia Giulia 1942–1956 published in 1999 and later translated in several languages. The English edition was published in 2005 under the title A tragedy revealed: the story of the Italian population of Istria, Dalmatia, and Venezia Giulia, 1942–1956, and had immediately a great success. Exposing in the book one of the great atrocities of our time, Petacco gives voice in a very touching way to the suffering of a people who were rejected and denied by their own country. Those who survived are validated by the historical and personal accounts presented in the book.

Publications