Stockholm - The Swedish Academy that selects the Nobel literature laureate is reportedly split over how to respond to death threats against Italian best-selling author Roberto Saviano.

Saviano's book, Gomorra, has angered the mafia, or Camorra, in Naples, and he has been forced to live under police protection. A week ago he said in a newspaper interview that he was considering leaving Italy.

Academy member Kerstin Ekman called for a statement from the body condemning the threats, even though she gave up active work in 1989. That move was to protest the academy's decision not condemn a death threat issued by Iran's religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini against author Salman Rushdie.

The 18 academy members are appointed for life.

In an e-mail to the Stockholm daily Expressen, Permanent Secretary Horace Engdahl said that while it was "deeply regretful" that a writer in a European country was under death threat, this was a "police matter."

Engdahl added that the mafia "did not present any point of view (theological, political, moral). It just wants revenge. This is a matter for the justice system."

Ekman has replied, saying she disagreed with Engdahl's view.

Cecilia Wikstrom, a Swedish member of parliament and deputy chairwoman of the legislature's cultural affairs committee, has meanwhile started a petition in support of Saviano. (dpa)