Description

Marina Warners father Esmond met her mother Ilia while serving as an officer in the British Army during the Second World War As Allied forces fought their way north through Italy Esmond found himself in the southern town of Bari where Ilia had grown up one of four girls of a widowed mother The Englishman approaching middle age and the twentyoneyearold Italian were soon married Before the war had come to an end Ilia was on her way alone to London to wait for her husbands return and to learn how to be Mrs Esmond Warner an Englishwoman

Ilia begins to learn the world of cricket riding canned food and distant relations she has landed in while Esmond struggles to support his wife and young daughter He comes up with the idea of opening a bookshop a branch of WH Smiths in Cairo where he had spent happy times during the North African campaign In Egypt however nationalists are challenging foreign influences especially British ones and before long Cairo is on fire

Esmond and Ilia is a picture of vanished worlds a portrait of two people struggling to know each other and themselves a daughters story of trying to come to terms with a past that is both hers and unknowable to her It is an unreliable memoir and a lasting work of literature lyrical sorrowful shaped by love and wonder