A story of mafia and motherhood, omertà, courage and rebirth. Danilo Chirico presents La figlia del clan (Edizioni Piemme), in which, for the first time, Giuseppina Pesce, “la postina”, tells from the inside what it means to be born and raised in a ’ndrangheta family.

The book:

A car speeds along the Salerno–Reggio Calabria highway. It is the summer of Italia ’90. A family sings happily with the windows down, heading to Gardaland. In the back seat, three children are playing. Among them is Giusy, eleven years old. She does not yet know that this happiness is fragile, that her surname weighs like a sentence.

Giuseppina Pesce grew up in Rosarno, at the heart of one of the most powerful clans of the ’ndrangheta. Daughter, sister, niece of bosses. Born into a house where silence is law and blood is never betrayed, in her early thirties she chooses to speak. To testify. To break the chain. She does it to save her children.

She is one of the first women in the ’ndrangheta to collaborate with justice. From that moment on, she loses everything: her family, her name, her former life.

La figlia del clan is the intimate and shocking account of a woman who has crossed violence, guilt, and fear in order to conquer her freedom.

The author:

Danilo Chirico (Reggio Calabria, 1977) is a journalist and television author. He works with RaiTre and hosted Le parole dell’antimafia (Rai Radio 3). He has authored news programs for Rai 1, La7, Sky, and MTV.

He has written for newspapers and press agencies, created the podcast Follow the money, and co-authored the documentary Il Celeste – Storia di Roberto Formigoni. He wrote the novel Chiaroscuro and the web series Angelo. He has published numerous essays, including Dimenticati (with Alessio Magro), which won the Indro Montanelli Giovani award.

He is also the author of Storia dell’antindrangheta, the first book on the history of the Calabrian antimafia movement, and founder of the association daSud.

The protagonist:

Giuseppina Pesce was born in 1979 into one of the most powerful ’ndrangheta families operating in Rosarno, Calabria. In 2010, she was arrested on charges of being the clan’s “postina” and later became a collaborator of justice.

Since then, she has been living under protection together with her three children.