The founder and director of the portal of Italians in Kenya, Alfredo 'Freddie' del Curatolo, is a peculiar and, to say the least, multifaceted character.
A professional journalist since 2001, he started writing at a very early age, already collaborating at the age of 18 with Corriere della Sera, Mattino di Napoli and various music and entertainment magazines, as well as treading the Milanese stages with several youth rock bands.
In 1990, he moved to Kenya to follow his father, a restaurateur, and he managed a few clubs in Malindi and created the rock-blues group 'Freddie & The Askaris', with whom he performed in clubs on the Kenyan coast.
In 1997, he returned to Italy and worked on the editorial staff of Corriere di Como, then for La Provincia, collaborating with numerous magazines, publishing houses and news sites.

His passion for music and theatre often accompanies his career as a journalist: in 2003 he published the biographical essay 'Se mai qualcuno capirà Rino Gaetano', dedicated to the figure of the Calabrian singer-songwriter, for Selene Edizioni. In 2004, his first music album entitled 'Nel regno degli animali', produced with elements of Elio e le Storie Tese and musicians of the calibre of Claudio Bazzari, Amedeo Bianchi and Claudio Pascoli, was ranked among the top 10 first works at the Premio Tenco.
In the meantime, he published other music biographies on Vasco Rossi and Loredana Bertè, for the publisher Bevivino, in the series 'I cattivI'.
With the album 'Nel regno degli animali', driven by the single 'Vediamo di vederci' being played on all Italian radio stations, Freddie came second at the Mantua Literature and Music Festival, took part in the prestigious Festival Ferrè in San Benedetto del Tronto, and was awarded one of the best artists of the year at the Premio Pigro Ivan Graziani in Teramo. The album features a beautiful track that will prove to be premonitory: 'Scappato a Mombasa'.

In July 2005, while his record company was organising his participation in the next Sanremo festival, he suddenly decided to 'escape to Mombasa' and return to live in 'his' Kenya.
In Malindi he runs a beach club, the Oasi Beach, and in the meantime prepares the publication of the booklet 'Malindi Italia, a semi-serious guide to the last Italian colony in Kenya', which he prints himself and sells more than 5,000 copies among residents and tourists in the African country alone.
In 2008, following the post-election violence in Kenya, tourism collapsed and the journalist Del Curatolo invented the 'malindikenya.net' website and press agency, financed by some forty entrepreneurs in the tourism sector in Malindi and Watamu, to promote correct information on what happens in Kenya's holiday resorts. The site reached 10,000 readers a day, becoming a point of reference for anyone dealing with Kenya and for press agencies and newspapers, not only Italian.
Freddie still directs it today, updating it daily and completing the work of information and services on the pages and social groups followed in total by 50 thousand "followers".

In 2009, 'Malindi Italia' was reprinted in Italy by the publisher Liberodiscrivere and sold thousands more copies, also becoming a theatre-song show, which Freddie took around Italy with musician Franco Cufone, with more than 40 dates in two seasons. In the same year, Freddie started the 'Karibuni Genoa' football school, combining two other passions in his life: football and social work. Taking children from the pitfalls of the street, in the poorest neighbourhoods of Malindi, he makes them study with the stimulus of being part of a real youth football team, whose 'grown-ups' play in the Serie B in Malindi United, coached by an Italian coach, Riccardo Botta. The story of the birth of the football school is told in the novel 'Genoa Club Malindi', published by Liberodiscrivere, the proceeds of which will help finance the school's activities. The Genoa Cricket and Football Team 1893, Italy's oldest team, will sponsor the football academy for educational purposes for four years. The Kenyan government rewards Freddie for helping to reduce petty crime in the neighbourhoods from which the football academy draws.

In 2010, Freddie published with the publisher GVE, the novel "Safari Bar" (already published in Kenya under the title "The Tales of Grandpa Kazungu") and began a collaboration with the musician Marco "Sbringo" Bigi, with whom he staged several shows, performed in Kenya and Italy. In 2012, with fellow photographer Leni, he published "Under an African lantern", a collective book of stories and photographs, dedicated to the initiative created by Freddie of a Genoa-Sampdoria solidarity derby involving his football school and the Happy House orphanage in Watamu. Thousands of copies will be sold at Genoa's Luigi Ferraris stadium during a Genoa-Sampdoria derby, again to finance the football school.
In 2013, together with Leni, he opened the bar-restaurant and literary café 'Jahazi' on the Malindi seafront, which has the particularity of offering recipes prepared exclusively with Kenyan ingredients. This is where the shows "Non vado più in Kenya", "Kenya Kambia" and "C'erano una volta gli italiani in Kenya" were produced, which for two years were performed every week with Sbringo, always selling out.
In 2014, Freddie publishes the novel 'La schedina di Gaetano' (Gaetano's file), which remained in the drawer for over 20 years, presenting it in Italian bookshops, often with the participation of musicians who sing the 'soundtrack'. In Kenya, he prints the booklet of poems, aphorisms and short essays 'Mi faccio luce con la paraffina'.

In 2016, Freddie's second music album was released, made with Apuan singer-songwriter Stefano Barotti.
'Esilio Volontario' features the collaboration of great musicians, such as Ivano Fossati's former guitarist, Armando Corsi, and Fabrizio De André's lyricist, Mario Arcari. A summer tour throughout northern Italy followed. In 2021, together with Africa expert journalist Angelo Ferrari, he published the book 'La pandemia in Africa' for the publisher Rosenberg & Sellier, which recounts the year of Covid-19 in the countries of the African continent.
The same year, Arcana Editrice reprinted and distributed in an updated version in Italian bookshops 'Se mai qualcuno capirà Rino Gaetano'.
During the pandemic, Freddie conceives with his friend Sbringo the music album 'C'erano una volta gli italiani in Kenya', which collects the most significant songs composed and performed by the duo in the last 10 years, plus Freddie's poems-monologue 'Mal d'Africa' and 'Non sarebbe Malindi', set to music by Bigi.
The album is presented in Malindi in 2022 and in Italy in 2023, with part of the proceeds going to the food projects of the non-profit organisation Karibuni for the pupils of a primary school in the hinterland of Malindi, which is particularly affected by drought.
In August 2022, Alfredo del Curatolo was awarded by the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, with the honour of Cavaliere dell'Ordine della Stella d'Italia, a special certificate awarded to Italians abroad who have distinguished themselves in their profession and dedicated themselves to promoting national prestige and cooperation in other countries. The award was presented by the Italian Ambassador to Kenya, Alberto Pieri.
In the autumn of 2022, for the publisher OgZero, in the series 'The Visible Cities', he published the book 'Nairobi', which earned him the international literary prize 'Volterrani - Narrare il mondo', presented by the Piedmont Region at the Turin Book Fair in April 2023.
Since 2022 Freddie del Curatolo has been the Kenya correspondent for the ANSA news agency.