I Am Giorgia: 'self-serving' yet 'amazing story' of Italy's first female prime minister

Giorgia Meloni, once a 'short, fat, sullen, bullied girl', explains how she became one of the most powerful people in politics

Book cover of I Am Giorgia by Giorgia Meloni
Meloni's 'punchy memoir' mixes 'humour and bluntness'
(Image credit: Skyhorse)

When Giorgia Meloni became Italy's first female PM in 2022, many commentators dubbed her the "far-right heir of Benito Mussolini", and claimed that she wanted "to dismantle democracy", said Nicholas Farrell in The Spectator.

Three years on, Italy remains a democracy, and Meloni's party, Fratelli d'Italia, is more popular than when she came to power – an "almost unheard of" feat for a governing party in the West today. Meloni's memoir, "I Am Giorgia" – "already a bestseller in Italy" and now translated into English – describes how a "short, fat, sullen, bullied girl" from a single-parent family in Rome transformed herself into a prominent figure on the "largely male-dominated world stage".

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