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A classic of World War II, here in its first American edition. War in Val d'Orcia is Iris Origo's elegantly simple chronicle of daily life at La Foce, a manor in a Tuscan no-man's land bracketed by foreign invasion and civil war.
With the immediacy only a diary can have, the book tells how the Marchesa Origo, an Anglo-American married to an Italian landowner, kept La Foce and its farms functioning while war threatened to overrun it and its people. She and her husband managed to protect their peasants, succor refugee children from Genoa and Turrin, hide escaped Allied prisoners of war-and somehow stand up to the Germans, who in dread due course occupied La Foce in 1944 and forced the Marchesa to retreat under a hot June sun.
Fleeing eight impossible miles on foot, along a mined road under shell fire, with sixty children in tow, she sheltered her flock in the dubious safety of a nearby village. A few days later, official Fascism disappeared, and La Foce was ransacked by the retreating Wehrmacht. Here, as the restoration of La Foce begins, her book ends.
Beyond praise and above mere documentary value, War in Val d'Orcia belongs to the literature of humanity.
With the immediacy only a diary can have, the book tells how the Marchesa Origo, an Anglo-American married to an Italian landowner, kept La Foce and its farms functioning while war threatened to overrun it and its people. She and her husband managed to protect their peasants, succor refugee children from Genoa and Turrin, hide escaped Allied prisoners of war-and somehow stand up to the Germans, who in dread due course occupied La Foce in 1944 and forced the Marchesa to retreat under a hot June sun.
Fleeing eight impossible miles on foot, along a mined road under shell fire, with sixty children in tow, she sheltered her flock in the dubious safety of a nearby village. A few days later, official Fascism disappeared, and La Foce was ransacked by the retreating Wehrmacht. Here, as the restoration of La Foce begins, her book ends.
Beyond praise and above mere documentary value, War in Val d'Orcia belongs to the literature of humanity.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
IRIS ORIGO (1902-1988) was born in England, the child of an Anglo-Irish mother and an American father. Privately educated in Florence, she later devoted herself to the development of La Foce, her Tuscan farming estate, and to her writing. Her work in biography includes Leopardi: A Study in Solitude, and The Last Attachment, a study of Byron's love affair with Teresa Guiccioli. During World War Two she and her husband, the Marchese Antonio Origo, converted La Foce into a refuge for children from the bombed cities of northern Italy and escaped Allied prisoners of war. The Marchesa Origo was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in England.
Review:
Beyond doubt a minor masterpiece. --The Washington Post
A welcome rediscovery, evoking a unique, strange moment in civilian/soldier wartime-history with spare, vital immediacy. --Kirkus
Even the most casual acquaintance with Iris Origo cannot fail to produce the impression of a remarkable woman. --The New York Times Book Review
A welcome rediscovery, evoking a unique, strange moment in civilian/soldier wartime-history with spare, vital immediacy. --Kirkus
Even the most casual acquaintance with Iris Origo cannot fail to produce the impression of a remarkable woman. --The New York Times Book Review
A welcome rediscovery, evoking a unique, strange moment in civilian/soldier wartime-history with spare, vital immediacy. --Kirkus
Even the most casual acquaintance with Iris Origo cannot fail to produce the impression of a remarkable woman. --The New York Times Book Review
A welcome rediscovery, evoking a unique, strange moment in civilian/soldier wartime-history with spare, vital immediacy. --Kirkus
Even the most casual acquaintance with Iris Origo cannot fail to produce the impression of a remarkable woman. --The New York Times Book Review
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherThorndike Press
- Publication date1984
- ISBN 10 0896215709
- ISBN 13 9780896215702
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages419
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War in Val d'Orcia: 1943-1944 : a diary
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War in Val d'Orcia: 1943-1944 : a diary
Published by
Thorndike Press
(1984)
ISBN 10: 0896215709
ISBN 13: 9780896215702
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