PASSION JUSTICE FREEDOM LETIZIA BATT GEB: Passion Justice Freedom - Photographs of Sicily - Tapa dura

"At its worst there were as many as five Mafia-related killings a day [in Palermo]. And wherever the murder was, there, too, was a small, slightly disheveled, blond dynamo, brandishing her camera like a weapon as she recorded the carnage for her paper. Now, some one hundred of those images have been gathered in "Letizia Battaglia: Passion, Justice, Freedom--Photographs of Sicily." The book is a stark indictment of life--and death--under the Mafia. Battaglia's images have become emblematic of a growing Italian anti-Mafia movement." --Newsday

One woman's passionate battle for justice.

Letizia Battaglia's story, her vision of Sicily, and her fight for justice against the Mafia as revealed in this biographical monograph is as stunning as it is heroic. This W. Eugene Smith Award-winning photographer demonstrates photography's power to serve as both a weapon and a voice for the silent majority.

After years of fighting for the life of her troubled city of Palermo-as a photographer, deputy councilwoman, ecological activist, defender of women's rights, and defender of human rights-Battaglia continues the battle with the fierce passion, intelligence, and vision for which she is known.

Letizia Battaglia: Passion, Justice, Freedom juxtaposes iconic pictures of the everyday joy, suffering, and vitality of the Palermitani with images showing the effects of the Mafia predators who have controlled much of the city for so long.

Along with an intimate profile of the photographer by Melissa Harris, Alexander Stille chronicles Battaglia's fight against the Mafia, putting her photographs in the context of Palermo in the 1980s and '90s. Renate Siebert addresses the heretofore unexplored role of women and the Mafia in her essay. Magazine editor Simona Mafei contributes an essay about her work with Battaglia.