Brazza in Congo: A Life and Legacy

by Idanna Pucci (Editor), Idanna Puccci (Editor)

Brazza in A Legacy and A Life presents a first-ever consideration of the great African explorer by Africans themselves, focusing on the story of his visionary humanism. Pietro Paolo Savorgnan di Brazza rejected the racism of his age and embraced the African people with respect and equality, signing a treaty with Makoko Iloo I, of the ancient Batéké tribe, whose influence extended over 725,000 square miles. Richly illustrated with two hundred black-and-white and color photographs, drawings, watercolors, and paintings, the book accompanies a major exhibition that opened in Rome, Italy, and will be in New York in February and March 2009. Editor Idanna Pucci is the author of The Trials of Maria Barbella , The Epic of A Balinese Journey of the Soul , and Against All The Strange Destiny of a Balinese Prince . Educated at Columbia University, and a direct descendent of Brazza, Pucci has brought together Jean Leonard Touadi, Marie-Claude Dupre, Como Kinata, Terence Ward, Félicien Challaye, Jean Pigozzi, Christian Campiche, and many more to tell the story of this great African man of action. She has led missions to East Timor and Burma for Open Society Institute and Soros Foundation, and her documentary film Evgenia of Patagonia won the Premio del Pubblico at Torino’s CinDonne Festival in 2005.

240 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2009

About the author

Since leaving her ancestral home in Florence, Italy, Idanna Pucci pursued her interest in diverse cultures through far-flung journeys. Her first stop was New York, where she worked for her uncle, fashion designer Emilio Pucci, who introduced her to Indonesian iconography through his work inspired by Bali and Java.
She soon moved to Bali, where she pursued her interest in myth and the oral tradition. . Various assignments for Asia Magazine enabled her to travel throughout South East Asia and Japan, and across the Soviet Union on the last steam engine of the Trans-Siberian railway. During her Comparative Literature studies at Columbia University, she wrote "The Epic of Life," a classic on Balinese culture.
She has produced various documentaries: “Eugenia of Patagonia” on the life of her aunt who founded a town at the end of the world, and served as its legendary mayor for thirty years; “Black Africa White Marble”, inspired by her book "Brazza in Congo: A Life and Legacy" (Umbrage, 2009) that sheds light on Western Africa’s colonial past and its troubled present; and more recently “Talk Radio Tehran” about defiant women in Iran who fulfill their aspirations in spite of the gender-apartheid system that dominates their lives.
She is also the author of "The Lady of Sing: an American Countess, an Italian Immigrant, and their Epic Battle for Justice in New York’s Gilded Age" (New Edition, Simon & Schuster, NY, 2020 - with the preface by Edgar Morin). It’s the story of her American great-grandmother who shook New York’s Gilded Age in 1895 with the first campaign against the death penalty to save the first woman sentenced to the electric chair, a twenty year old Italian immigrant.
In "The World Odyssey of a Balinese Prince" (Tuttle Publishing, VT 2020) a collection of true stories between East and West with a foreword by Francesco Clemente, she narrates the extraordinary life of a cultural visionary and medical doctor whose daring adventures transcend borders.
Idanna serves as an ambassador of Religions for Peace, the world’s largest interfaith organization. She speaks Italian, English, French, and reasonable Bahasa Indonesia. She resides with her husband between Florence and New York.