Uneducated intellectual, self-taught, secular lover and mountaineer of classical Hebrew; it is difficult to crush in a sentence to Erri de Luca (Naples, 1950). Before he started writing the books, he was a laborer, a trucker and a mason in Turin, ruled by Fiat. They were the senior militants of the far-left movement of the Continuous Lotta, the days when young Italian revolutionaries were inspired by the anarchists of Barcelona.

Then he started sewing the words, and on his own he began to learn and translate the old languages. His comrade is Jiddisha and the classic Hebrew. In 1989 he wrote his first novel: Non ora, non qui (Now no, here no). Dry literature to show the raw view of life. La Parola Contraria is the last creation of De Luca. The book, written with indignation, defends sabotage against the TAV against the Turin Lyon Railway consortium, which has submitted a complaint to it. He has responded to us with the same dryness that reigns in his novels.

“The TAV has to sabotage. Scissors are used to cut fences. That's not terrorism." These statements you made to Huffington Post in 2013 have led you to seek a five-year jail sentence.

I reaffirm what was stated in that interview. I am convinced that the TAV between Turin and Lyon is a pointless project, so I think it is right to sabotage the infrastructure. Val di Susa's neighbours have been fighting the TAV for 25 years, but not materially doing this or the other, but voluntarily. The valley said no to the project. He knows that those mountains are full of asbestos and that the stones are starting to get rid of poison. The sabotage of the people of Val di Susa is a preventive struggle, as it is a matter of avoiding an environmental disaster. Far from crying in the future, they try to avoid destruction.

In the complaint, they emphasize that their words can “incite to commit a crime.” As a reference for many entrepreneurs, they consider you “bad teacher”.

They go further. The indictment says that my words can influence people's behaviors. However, no one has shown me a direct connection between my words and concrete action. First of all, I am not a teacher of anyone, and with opinions I do not want to set up a chair. Unfortunately, the witch hunt against me has begun. Because I have used the public square to defend the struggle of the citizens of a small community. In recent years, the Turin Public Prosecutor’s Office has initiated more than 1,000 court proceedings against anti-TAV activists. So they want to silence and censor my voice. It was enough for a French company, called Turin Lyon Ferroaire, to lodge a complaint with the Municipal Police of Madrid. The prosecutor’s office in Turin, for its part, has accepted the petition instead of archiving it.

Why?

Because the TAV is a strategic infrastructure for Italy. It gives the impression that it has to be cost or not. That's why they've militarized the Susa Valley. The curious thing is that it was not the voice of the state that rose up against me, but a private company.

In the complaint they refer to your past, saying that you have lived on the limit of legality. Is it the decision to set an example?

The Prosecutor's Office seems to want to punish my entire trajectory. As if the statements against the TAV were the continuation of my political biography. That doesn't have a foot or a head. In the 1970s, he was a young revolutionary, a member of a revolutionary movement. But now I don't represent a community. As an individual, I owe myself loyalty. In addition, in these 40 years I have become a writer and I demand the use of the floor. What has been said about the APR has nothing to do with my past.

In fact, he defends the use of the “opposite word” in his latest booklet. At a time when there is so much talk of freedom of expression, does this freedom have limits?

Yes, of course. One's freedom of expression ends when you hurt the other.

In the view of many, the attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine has called into question multicultural modernism. Have the jokes been over?

Charlie Hebdo is to me the last exponent of the anarchist movement of the past centuries. They claimed shame in dealing with factual powers. They did not want to make concessions to anyone or anything. However, disrespect for Islam is considered insulting or insulting by many Muslims. When I was young, I took an oath every four words. Age has made me more responsible. I am not a believer, but over time I have decided not to offend divinity, because I can offend the one I have next to me. Most of the time, we need to put ourselves on each other's skin.

Are we facing a new struggle between reason and faith?

Religious sentiment has become more emotional over the past 20 years. Too hot, I would say. This can be seen in monotheistic religions, in Islam, but also in Judaism. Christianity, for example, has had to accept the license to laugh or take your hair. In Islam, however, this is considered a blasphemy. We have to be aware of this, we cannot act as if we did not know. There are different temperatures to live the faith, which causes extreme reactions.

However, within Islam there is a war that is unturned, between a Sunni sect (Islamic State) and other currents (the rest of the Sunni and Shiites). The Paris attacks should be analysed in this context. Divinity is the new flag that precedes rifles.

First of all, what does the Left have to say? I hear you revive leftist movements in Europe ...

The new left-wing movements that have been born in southern Europe, on the shores of the Mediterranean, are the best news of recent years. The Greek Syriza was born to be drifted from European banks. Greece has become the new flag of the European Left and we must therefore protect it. In Italy, I find it more difficult to make a movement of this kind a reality, which two years ago was capitalized by the 5 Star Movement. The Beppe Grillo Party, for its part, has called into question the possibility of creating an independent and left-wing movement.