Oriana Fallaci, Dead at 77

Little known in the U.S., but a woman capable of causing outrage in Europe and the Muslim World, Oriana Fallaci -- writer, journalist, cultural critic, proud Italian -- died this morning in Firenze, the city of her birth. She had been living in Manhattan's Upper East Side for some years, fought cancer for 10 years, and in the past few days returned to Italy as her condition worsened.

Fallaci was an outspoken critic of Islam, and feared that Italy -- and Western civilization -- was falling prey to it and its followers. Her opponents lambasted her as a racist, a xenophobe, but Europe's cultural circles rarely heard a voice that was as passionate and brazen as hers, saying what she wanted to say, when she wanted to say it. Fallaci spoke out against the changing face of Western Europe with little or no political correctness.

Known for being polemical, in May of 2006, after plans to build a mosque in the Tuscan hills (Colle Val d'Elsa) were finalized, Fallaci said: "I don't want to see this mosque, it's very close to my house in Tuscany. I don't want to see a 24-meter high minaret in the landscape of Giotto, when I, in their countries, I can't even wear a cross or walk around with a bible... ...I am going to get some explosives and blow it up."

Over the course of her long career, Fallaci interviewed Henry Kissinger, Yasir Arafat, Golda Meir, Qaddafi, Ayatollah Khomeini, Deng Xiao Ping, and during WWII she met Italy's anti-fascist, Communist resistance with her father.

Her books include: "The Force of Reason", "The Rage and the Pride", and "Inshallah".