was an Italian journalist, author, and political interviewer. A former antifascist partisan during World War II, she had a long and successful journalistic career. She died in her native Florence, Italy. She was 77 years old and had been suffering from breast cancer for some 15 years. She was called "our most celebrated female writer" by Ferruccio De Bortoli, former director of the newspaper Corriere della Sera. Decades ago, the Los Angeles Times described her as "the journalist to whom virtually no world figure would say no." As a young journalist, she interviewed many internationally known leaders and celebrities such as Henry Kissinger, the Shah of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, Lech Wałęsa, Willy Brandt, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Walter Cronkite, Omar Khadafi, Federico Fellini, Sammy Davis Jr, Deng Xiaoping, Nguyen Cao Ky, Yasir Arafat, Indira Gandhi, Alexandros Panagoulis, Archbishop Makarios, Golda Meir, Nguyen Van Thieu, Haile Selassie and Sean Connery. After retirement, she authored a series of articles and books that roused controversy amongst certain Islamic and Arab factions. In 2003 in one of several interviews over the years with the American Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) network's Charlie Rose, Rose asked of her, "What are you most proud of?" "My guts, my honesty and my independence of judgment," she replied. She spent the last years of her life in New York, where she fought a prolonged battle against breast cancer, which she referred to as "the Other One" in her most recent works. She returned to Italy before succumbing to cancer in a hospital in her native Florence on the night between the 14th and the 15th of September 2006. She was buried on September 17 2006 in the multireligious cemetery Allori in Florence, where only the family and a few friends were invited, no memorial service, neither religious nor civilian, was held according to her last will and no photo or film was taken. She was buried in a white coffin wearing a tailleur and a military watch around 11 am, at the same time the bell of the church of Sant'Ilario where her mother used to pray and she was baptized, was rung.

Career

Fallaci was born in Florence. During World War II she joined the resistance despite her youth, in the democratic armed group "Giustizia e Libertà". Her father Edoardo Fallaci, a cabinet maker in Florence, was a political activist struggling to put an end to the dictatorship of Fascist leader Benito Mussolini. It was during this period that Fallaci was first exposed to the atrocities of war. Fallaci began her journalistic career in her teens, becoming a special correspondent for the paper Il mattino dell'Italia centrale in 1950. Starting in 1967 she worked as a war correspondent, in Vietnam, during the Indo-Pakistani War, in the Middle East, and in South America. For many years, Fallaci was a special correspondent for the political magazine L'Europeo, and wrote for a number of leading newspapers and Epoca magazine. During the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre prior to the 1968 Summer Olympics, Fallaci was shot three times, dragged down stairs by her hair, and left for dead by Mexican armed forces. Later, her recollection of the events would shift. According to The New Yorker, her former support of the student activists "devolved into a dislike of Mexicans." In the 1970s, she had an affair with the subject of one of her interviews, Alexandros Panagoulis, who had been a solitary figure in the Greek resistance against the 1967 dictatorship. He had been captured, violently tortured, and imprisoned for his (unsuccessful) assassination attempt against dictator and ex-Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos. Panagoulis died in 1976, under controversial circumstances, in a road accident. Fallaci maintained that Panagoulis was assassinated by remnants of the Greek military junta, and her book Un Uomo (A Man) (ISBN 0-671-25241-0) was inspired by the life of Panagoulis. During her infamous 1972 interview with Henry Kissinger, Kissinger agreed that the Vietnam War was a "useless war" and compared himself to "the cowboy who leads the wagon train by riding ahead alone on his horse." Kissinger later wrote that it was "the single most disastrous conversation I have ever had with any member of the press." Fallaci twice received the St. Vincent Prize for journalism, as well as the Bancarella Prize, 1971 for Nothing, and So Be It; Viareggio Prize, 1979, for Un uomo: Romanzo; and Prix Antibes, 1993, for Inshallah.. She received a D.Litt. from Columbia College (Chicago). In previous years, she lectured at the University of Chicago, Yale University, Harvard University, and Columbia University. Fallaci’s early writings have been translated into 21 languages including English, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Greek, Swedish, Polish, Croatian and Slovenian. Controversy A journalist from Florence, Tiziano Terzani, expressed disagreements with her approach in an open letter to her in Corriere della Sera while David Holcberg at the Ayn Rand Institute supported her cause with a letter to The Washington Times. Fallaci received support from rightist political parties and movements such as the Lega Nord in Italy, where her books have sold over 1 million copies alone, but also from individuals and organisations in the rest of the world. At the first European Social Forum, which was held in Florence in November 2002, Fallaci invited the people of Florence to cease commercial operations and stay home. Furthermore, she compared the ESF to the Nazi occupation of Florence. Protest organizers declared "We have done it for Oriana, because she hasn't spoken in public for the last 12 years, and hasn't been laughing in the last 50". Italian pacifist singer Jovanotti implicitly mentioned Fallaci in a song, Salvami, where she is described as "the journalist and writer who loves war/because it reminds her of when she was young and beautiful". In 2002 in Switzerland the Islamic Center and the Somal Association of Geneva, SOS Racisme of Lausanne, along with a private citizen, sued her for the supposedly racist content of The Rage and The Pride. In November 2002 a Swiss judge issued an arrest warrant for violations of article 261 and 261 bis of the Swiss criminal code and requested the Italian government to either try or extradite her. Roberto Castelli, Italian minister of Justice mentioned this fact in an interview broadcasted by Radio Padania affirming that the Constitution of Italy protects freedom of speech and thus the extradition request had to be rejected; the episode is mentioned in her book The Force of Reason. In May 2005, Adel Smith, president of the Union of Italian Muslims, launched a lawsuit against Fallaci charging that "some of the things she said in her book The Force of Reason are offensive to Islam." Smith's attorney, Matteo Nicoli, cited a phrase from the book that refers to Islam as "a pool that never purifies." Consequently an Italian judge ordered her to stand trial set for June 2006 in Bergamo on charges of "defaming Islam." A previous prosecutor had sought dismissal of the charges. The preliminary trial began on 12 June in Bergamo and on 25 June Judge Beatrice Siccardi decided that Oriana Fallaci should indeed stand trial beginning on 18 December. On June 3, 2005, Fallaci published on the front page of the Italian daily newspaper a highly controversial article entitled "Noi Cannibali e i figli di Medea" ("We cannibals and Medea's offspring") inviting women not to vote for a public referendum about artificial insemination that was held on June 12 and 13, 2006. On August 27, 2005, Fallaci had a private audience with Pope Benedict XVI at Castel Gandolfo. Although an atheist, Fallaci had great respect for Pope Benedict XVI and her admiration for his 2004 essay titled "If Europe Hates Itself". In the June 2006 issue of Reason Magazine, libertarian writer Cathy Young wrote: 

Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci’s 2002 book The Rage and the Pride makes hardly any distinction between radical Islamic terrorists and Somali street   vendors who supposedly urinate on the corners of Italy’s great cities. Christopher Hitchens, who described the book in The Atlantic as “a sort of   primer in how not to write about Islam,” notes that Fallaci’s diatribes have all the marks of other infamous screeds about filthy, disease-ridden,   sexually threatening aliens.

Awards
On November 30, 2005, Oriana Fallaci received the Center for the Study of Popular Culture’s Annie Taylor Award in New York. She was honored for her "heroism and valor" that made of her "a symbol of struggle against oppression and fascism". Since 9/11, Fallaci had dedicated herself in the fight against "the greatest threat to Western civilization since the Cold War, Islamofascism".
On December 8, 2005, the writer received the Ambrogino d'oro, the most prestigious award of the city of Milan.
On December 14, 2005, she was awarded, upon proposal of Education minister Letizia Moratti of the Berlusconi cabinet, with a gold medal for her cultural efforts ("benemerita della cultura") by the President of the Italian Republic, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. Because of the writer's serious health condition, she couldn't travel to Italy. She sent a message stating (translated from Italian):

The gold medal moves me because it gratifies my hard work of writer and journalist, my engagement to the defense of our culture, my love for my   Country and for Freedom. My well-known health condition prevents me to travel and to withdraw personally an award that, for me, a woman not   accustomed to medals and to trophies, has an intense ethical and moral meaning.    

This award also generated controversy, and anti-racist organizations sponsored a petition against the award. On February 22, 2006, the president of the regional council of Tuscany, Riccardo Nencini awarded Oriana Fallaci a gold medal. Nencini explained that the writer is a symbol of Tuscany's culture in the world.

Books by Oriana Fallaci

A Man, a novel telling the biography of Alexandros Panagoulis, who fought against the Regime of the Colonels in Greece. It's a story about a hero who fights alone for freedom and for truth, never giving up, and so he dies, killed by all. (1979) 

The Seven Sins of Hollywood preface by Orson Welles, Longanesi (Milan), 1958.

The Useless Sex: Voyage around the Woman Horizon Press (New York City), 1961.

Penelope at War (1962).

Limelighters (1963)

The Egotists: Sixteen Surprising Interviews (1963)

Quel giorno sulla Luna (1970)

Inshallah, a fictional account of Italian troops stationed in Lebanon in 1983.

If the Sun Dies, about the US space program.

Interview With History (1976, a collection of interviews with various political figures Liveright)

Letter to a child never born, a dialogue between a mother and her unborn child.

Nothing, and so be it, report on the Vietnam war based on personal experiences.

Oriana Fallaci intervista Oriana Fallaci, Fallaci interviews herself on the subject of "Eurabia" and "Islamofacism". (Milan: Corriere della Sera, August 2004).

The Rage and The Pride (La Rabbia e l'Orgoglio, 2001).

The Force of Reason (La Forza della Ragione, 2004) 

Oriana Fallaci intervista sé stessa - L'Apocalisse (in Italian). An update of the interview with herself. A new, long epilogue is added. Publisher: Rizzoli, November 2004.

Fallaci has also written essays and novels revolving around news events

(from Wikipedia)

One million of people in the Circo Massimo Arena in Rome, July 10 2006, for to greet and to applaud our champions return from Germany. When italian team go up the enorm stage, start the music "We Are The Champions" of the Queen and Alessandro Del Piero seems Freddy Mercury, singing and dancing!!!

What Night!

Gianluca Pessotto, ex-player of Italy team and Juventus Football Club and now managing of the same Juventus team, show little sign of resumption after him suicide attempt, where he jumped from a window on height of 20 meters.

Italian soccer team, friends and all italians want that Gianluca return with him wife and 2 daughters, to guide the Juventus to new life after the recent bad events. All in italy have need the Juventus return to shine together the other soccer team of italy such as Roma, Internazionale, Milan, Torino, Napoli but is necessary good and honest people as Gianluca.

Please Gianluca: live for you, for your wife, for your daughters and for all us.