FLORENCE, Italy, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- Italian journalist and controversial author Oriana Fallaci has died in Florence, Italy, after a battle with lung cancer. She was 77.
Fallaci, a former war correspondent in Vietnam and other conflicts, shocked many with books written after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States that criticized the Islamic religion as "oppressive" and labeled Arab immigrants to Europe as "bigoted," Italian news agency ANSA reported Friday.
Born in Florence, Fallaci joined the anti-fascist Resistance as a teenager. She became a war correspondent at a time when very few women were allowed the position, and she was later wounded during student protests against the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico, AKI news agency said.
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano said Friday Fallaci was "an impassioned protagonist of animated cultural battles," ANSA reported.
The head of the Italian Journalists' Union called her a "great, courageous and scrupulous journalist but also an intellectual whose most recent views were unacceptable and in many respects dangerous."
