The Book of 2020 …says acclaimed fantasy and literary writer Michael Moorcock

The Empty Shield is a political autobiography which tells the story of Giacomo Donis’ political and personal decision to leave the USA in the early 1970s in the wake of the Vietnam War. Donis describes it as ‘completely different from all other “Vietnam books”. It is neither scholarly, journalistic, nor impartial…It is political, personal, philosophical and Zen. It is an expression of political commitment and political responsibility.’

In the 11 November 2020 edition of the NEW STATESMAN, in its coveted BOOKS OF THE YEAR selection, Moorcock picks out The Empty Shield writing:

‘The Empty Shield by Giacomo Donis (Eyewear Publications) is an extraordinary political biography. Donis describes how his Marxist politics developed and how renouncing his US citizenship (for Italian) proved harder than leaving the Mafia, with federal agents grilling him and warning how people like him could suffer. It’s a “people’s history” rather than a conventional memoir’.

The book is available from