Davide Cerullo grew up in Naples in the rough Scampia district. He became a dealer, made it big in the Camorra – and made the jump. Today he deals with his past through literature. A meeting in Naples.
The atmosphere is sober. A light bulb burns above the kitchen table, the walls are bare, some warm spring air blows in from the balcony. An everyday setting that doesn’t fit Davide Cerullo’s story at all.
The 49-year-old sits at the table and points to a photo of himself as a youth. “How terrible I looked there,” he says. In the picture he is 16, with a striking face and sunglasses, just a young dealer with what it takes to make it big in the Camorra. The fact that he made the jump a few years later, that he, who had barely gone to school, started reading and is now writing books himself, is still “a miracle” for Cerullo today.