Talk Of The Devil [Hardcover]

"Gripping...High-grade journalism." -- "Sunday Times"
"Orizio's laconic, deadpan style is subversively funny." -- "Observer"
"A fascinating insight into the minds of evil." -- "Mail on Sunday"

"From the Trade Paperback edition."

An extraordinary insight into some of the most evil leaders of our times.

What happened to the great dictators of contemporary history, responsible for some of its most gruesome chapters? And, now that they are disgraced, or in prison, or exiled, or simply forgotten, do they still seem as terrifying as when they held power? Thanks to his conversion to Islam, the unrepentant Idi Amin lives in exile in Saudi Arabia and is still meddling in African wars. Before dying at his dilapidated mansion in Bangui, Bokassa proclaims himself the 13th apostle of the Roman Catholic Church and talks of his secret meetings with the Pope. Colonel Menghistu, still a guest of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, defends his Red Terror campaign. Mrs Hoxha, from her bare prison cell in Tirana, argues why the most isolated regime in the world was right to adopt a brutal Stalinist ideology and explains how it worked. Paris-based Baby Doc Duvalier, in his first interview after fleeing Haiti in 1986, speaks about voodoo, solar panels, the women of his life and how he lost all his money. Mrs Milosevic, clutching her Fendi handbag, defends the wars in the former Yugoslavia and declares her love for her husband, Slobodan. Jaruzelski, entrenched in a furious legal battle in a Warsaw court, reveals his personal transition from son of an aristocratic family exiled to Siberia by the Soviets, to autocrat army general in sunglasses who defended Moscow's supremacy in eastern Europe. In Talk of the Devil Riccardo Orizio has tracked down these fallen tyrants and thrown a new light on people whose names have become synonymous with misery, death and terror for entire nations. (20021018)

An extraordinary insight into some of the most evil leaders of our times.

Riccardo Orizio is a London correspondent for La Repubblica. He is the author of Lost White Tribes which was shortlisted for the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award. He lives in London. (20021018)