Roberto Saviano, the Italian writer placed under a death sentence by the brutal Camorra clan he exposed in his worldwide bestseller Gomorra, said Monday that he had no love for his book.
''I don't regret having written this book but I do not love it, because it has taken away my freedom: my book gets out more than I do,'' he told an audience at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
Saviano added that the fact that he was hated by ''a large part of the region'' where he comes from because of the book's success is ''a sore that will never heal''.
''The people who hate me think that I have soiled the reputation of their land,'' he said.
''The father of a (Camorra) boss, Nicola Schiavone, told me: 'You're a clown who is horsing around with these things'. I'd like to tell him that I would rewrite (the book) a hundred times, but it would be a lie''.
Saviano reiterated his plan to leave Italy in order to escape the pressure of living under the constant threat of assassination by the Camorra.
''It's not easy to carry on writing living in a barracks with a five-man escort and so going away would give me the chance to do my work,'' he said.
The writer thanked Los Angeles for the warm welcome extended to him and said he was pleased that audiences showed interest in the fact that organised crime had begun to develop into legal business.
''Obviously I'm aware that part of the interest in my book stems from the fact that the Italian (Mafia) continues to be fashionable,'' he added.
Saviano was unable to attend a screening of Gomorrah, the film adaptation of his book directed by Matteo Garrone, when it was shown here last week to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as Italy's candidate for next year's Foreign Film Oscar.
The Academy is set to vote a 'long list' of nine foreign films in a month's time and whittle it down to the five Oscar nominees in late January, a month before the Oscar ceremony.
Gomorrah, which won second prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival and bagged the best screenplay award at the recent Chicago Film Fest, is seen as the early favourite.
Garrone and producer Domenico Procacci, who attended Tuesday night's screening, said Saviano's absence had been caused by a ''lack of coordination'' between Italian and US police.
The writer sent a message thanking the Academy audience for considering the film.
