Overview

"Marina Warner's 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 twenty-one-year-old Italian were soon married. Before the war had come to an end, Ilia was on her way alone to London to wait for her husband's 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 W.H. Smith's, 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 daughter's 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."

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"These are the soulful recollections of a daughter who is discovering family lore, and fans of memoir will find much to admire.-- ""AudioFile"""

Author Information

Marina Warner's studies of religion, mythology, and fairy tales include Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary, From the Beast to the Blonde, and Stranger Magic. She is a professor of English and creative writing at Birkbeck, University of London. In 2015 she was given the Holberg Prize and in 2017 she was elected president of the Royal Society of Literature. She has contributed to a number of NYRB Classics, including Robert Kirk's The Secret Commonwealth and Leonora Carrington's Down Below. She lives in London. Marina Warner's studies of religion, mythology, and fairy tales include Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary, From the Beast to the Blonde, and Stranger Magic. She is a professor of English and creative writing at Birkbeck, University of London. In 2015 she was given the Holberg Prize and in 2017 she was elected president of the Royal Society of Literature. She has contributed to a number of NYRB Classics, including Robert Kirk's The Secret Commonwealth and Leonora Carrington's Down Below. She lives in London.

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