Berlin - The Berlin Academy for the Arts plans to offer a speaking engagement to Roberto Saviano, the Italian author who is in hiding for fear of retribution by organized crime, an official said Wednesday.

Klaus Staeck, the academy president, said he had offered a year ago to engage Saviano to speak at a seminar on the Mafia, but the author had ruled he could not travel safely. Staeck said he would try again to book him.

Speaking on Berlin's Kulturradio station, Staeck said, "Solidarity with him is needed." He compared Saviano to the Indian-born British novelist Salman Rushdie, who faced the risk of death after a religious condemnation in Iran.

Saviano, 28, wrote the best-seller Gomorrah, which describes the methods of the Camorra, the organized-crime network in Naples, Italy. (dpa)