"L'Italy of favors" the interesting and courageous new book by Stefano Tamburini
Favors to the powerful, rights passed off as favors, reparations for environmental devastation only hinted at but always as if they were concessions; public works promised and never carried out by doing courtesies to those who have an interest in those works not being there. And again, Systems of Power that are based on the bestowal of favors in exchange for votes and the more or less veiled denial of rights to those who are not part of that System.
Through eight exemplary stories, the book “L’Italia dei favori” (Il Foglio Letterario Edizioni) traces the last decades of a country that increasingly sees Particular Interests privileged to the detriment of General Interests. Thus rights smuggled in as concessions systematically cause a collapse in voter turnout, a devastating progression in participation that undergoes downward peaks coinciding with the most serious episodes. And also the flourishing of these Power Systems that work above all on the perpetuation of Power, bestowing favors. And not only those.
The author of the book is Stefano Tamburini, a journalist and former editor of Corriere Romagna, Agl (the agency of the then Espresso Group that edited national news for 18 local newspapers), the City of Salerno and Il Tirreno. Those in the book “L’Italia dei favori” (Edizioni Il Foglio Letterario) are stories that Tamburini was able to experience directly-during his professional journey in local newspapers across half of Italy-and that reveal the misfortunes caused by parties and their appetites for power for power’s sake.
Stories where the citizen is the victim, and it matters little whether or not the politicians’ behaviors have been scrutinized by the judiciary and also found not to be illegal. Because the perspective with which the progressive degradation of the quality of politics is observed is not that of the criminal or civil code. Nor does it stop at the more genuine side of ethics. What might seem like a harsh attack on politics is actually an act of love for democracy and its most genuine essence, that of respect for representation and, above all, for the citizens represented.
Stefano Tamburini was born in Piombino (Li) on February 25, 1961, to a father from Piombino and a mother from Elba. Devourer of books and streets where he consumed marching shoes, he also cultivated a passion for journalism, already taking his first steps in the profession at the end of high school in the Piombino editorial office of the newspaper “Il Tirreno.” He then began a long journey in newspapers halfway across Italy. Of some he became editor: Corriere Romagna, Agenzia Agl (which edits the national news for the 18 local newspapers of the Espresso Group), the City of Salerno and Il Tirreno. In between editorships, there is also the task of coordinating supplements and inserts for the Group’s newspapers, particularly those related to major sporting events (Olympics, European and World Cups) and issues of technological innovation.
They are also in charge of the Group’s newspapers.
Among his many collaborations are those with the weekly Autosprint and the Abruzzi daily Il Centro, to produce a series of portraits of sports “Rebels,” which later contributed to his first book “The Price to Pay,” published in 2022, featuring sports as the setting for the struggle for human and civil rights. The book was a semifinalist in the 2023 Bancarella Sport Prize and a recipient of the 2023 “Books for peace” award. November 2023 saw the release of Stefano Tamburini’s second book, titled “Blessed, Damned and Rigged Dreams”. The work reveals the perverse mixture of the poetry of great sports feats and the not-always-clean business deals that lurk in the shadows of popular passion. In April 2024 the novel-truth “The Man and the Sea,” a story of a diver killed by a shark and the failed attempts to kill him again.
