2014
Nicola Gratteri
Acceptance Speech: For the last 20 years, I have never been to the movies or been able to watch a soccer game at the stadium or even to take a leisurely walk. But two things I have never given up: first, cultivating my piece of land, and second, going to schools to explain to children why it is a very bad idea to become a follower of the ’Ndrangheta…Speaking to young people is deeply gratifying, because it is like cultivating the earth: cultivating youth in the hope that it will bear fruit.
A dear friend of mine, Antonio Nicaso, asked me what was my first thought when I woke up. I answered, “hoping to see myself in the mirror without self-reproach.” And the last? “Going to sleep with my conscience clear.”