Oriana Fallaci and Alekos Panagoulis: A love story that made headlines

Oriana Fallaci was world-famous in the 1970s as a provocative interviewer and journalist, but few remember her name today outside of Europe. ORIANA: A Novel of Oriana Fallaci aims to change that and re-introduce Oriana as a pioneering female journalist in a class with Mike Wallace and Barbara Walters in the United States. Anastasia Rubis, a Greek American author that has never lost touch with her Hellenic roots, was drawn to Oriana because of the ground she broke as a leading woman professional of her generation.

Let’s be frank… It was and still is difficult for women to be trailblazers, let alone to find some modicum of happiness as they rise through what continues to be (though maybe not quite as much) a man’s world. But a piece of Fallaci’s life also brought together Italy and Greece. In fact, ORIANA (the novel) is an Italian story but also a Greek story. And one that has moved millions while leaving an important legacy. 

In 1973, Oriana famously fell in love with Alexander Panagoulis, the Greek hero of the Resistance and poet, when she went to Athens to interview him. Alekos was just out of prison for armed resistance against the junta regime of Papadopoulos; he was tortured for five years in Boyati prison. They fell in love though Oriana was 44, Alekos was 34, and they lived in different countries. They spent three years together and returned to Athens where Panagoulis was elected a member of Parliament. He met a tragic end, but Fallaci never forgot him. Today there is a statue of Panagoulis in Athens, many streets named for him in Glyfada and elsewhere, and a postage stamp with his picture.

Oriana is studied in journalism schools and revered by journalists today for her bold, probing Q&As with Kissinger, Golda Meir, Robert Kennedy, Gaddafi, Arafat, Khomeini and many others—who often regretted speaking with her, but they did so because it was prestigious. Oriana was brilliant, fierce, and totally self-made: born working class in Florence, she participated as a child in the Resistance against the occupying Nazis and was forced to drop out of university to support her family. Yet she rose to fame as “the greatest interviewer of her day” (Newsweek) and “a legend” (Dick Cavett).

She was a rebel and trailblazer: she went to Vietnam seven times as a war correspondent and got shot in Mexico City covering student protests of the Olympic Games. Christiane Amanpour has said “I wanted to be her!” and calls her a “great mentor.” Oriana made a huge contribution to journalism—she revolutionized the art of the interview. And she championed human rights and freedom, as Alexander Panagoulis did. Born in Florence, Oriana lived for many years in Manhattan and owned a townhouse on E. 61st Street. She died in 2006 and her obituary appeared in widespread international papers. 

The author Anastasia Stacy Rubis grew up spending summers in Sounion, a few miles down the coast from where Oriana and Alexander first met. She discovered this story on the island of Folegandros, in a dusty souvenir shop, when she found Fallaci’s memoir A Man spinning on a carousel. She never forgot the story and spent 11 years trying to break through in the American book publishing industry to publish her novel. The project started as a screenplay. In fact, Rubis worked with studio head Jim Gianopulos to get a meeting with Oriana in the early 2000’s.

To write the book, Rubis spent countless hours researching at Boston University where she studied Fallaci’s archives, putting on white gloves and handling original manuscripts, letters, newspaper and magazine articles, and even her original interview cassettes. Today, the novel has just been published by Delphinium Books in the United States. Readers are moved and impressed by the story of Oriana’s life but also her unique relationship with Panagoulis and the tragic period of the Greek dictatorship in Greece. Rubis is a graduate of Brown University, a former adjunct professor at Montclair State University where she received her Master’s, and she has been published in The New York Times and literary magazines. ORIANA is her debut novel.

Sophia Kalantzakos is a professor in environmental studies and public policy at New York University Abu Dhabi.