Book of the Week - The Woman Who Shot Mussolini
Sinead Cusack reads from Frances Stonor Saunders's account of troubled life of Violet Gibson, the daugher of an Anglo-Irish lord who attempted to assassinate Mussolini in Rome in 1926
Book of the Week - The Woman Who Shot Mussolini - Episode 1
On Wednesday 7th April, 1926, in front of a crowd of cheering Fascist supporters, Benito Mussolini is shot at close quarters. Who shot him and why did they do it?
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Book of the Week - The Woman Who Shot Mussolini - Episode 2
Violet Gibson's circumstances were comfortable financially, but her quest for spiritual comfort was troubled. What led her to raise a pistol at the Fascist dictator Mussolini?
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Book of the Week - The Woman Who Shot Mussolini - Episode 3
Mussolini was a man with a passion for living dangerously, and it was the heroic legend that he stoked which so enthused his supporters. But Violet Gibson came to feel differently.
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Book of the Week - The Woman Who Shot Mussolini - Episode 4
As she was led off by the police after she had shot Mussolini, Violet seemed surprised to hear what she had done. But her subsequent behaviour showed flashes of remarkable lucidity.
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Book of the Week - The Woman Who Shot Mussolini - Episode 5
Violet Gibson was eventually released by the Italian government. But how would her family determine her fate and future?
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