A chill in the air
Subtitle: an Italian war diary, 1939-1940
By: Iris Origo ; introduction by Lucy Hughes-Hallett ; afterword by Katia Lysy
Contributors: Hughes-Hallett, Lucy, writer of introduction; Lysy, Katia
Series: New York Review Books classics; New York Review Books classics
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 184
ISBN-13: 9781681372648
Subjects: Campaigns; English Personal narratives; Diaries; World War, 1939-1945
Description: "A harrowing account of life in Italy in the year leading up to World War II, available in the US for the first time. War in Italy in 1939 was by no means necessary or even beneficial to the country. But in June 1940, Mussolini finally declared war on Britain and France. The awful inevitability with which Italy stumbled its way into a war for which they were ill prepared and largely unenthusiastic is documented here with grace and clarity by one of the twentieth century's great diarists. This diary, which has never been published and was recently found in Iris Origo's archives, is the sad and arresting account of the grim absurdities that Italy and the world underwent as war became more and more unavoidable. Origo, British-born and living in Italy, was ideally placed to record the events. Extremely engaged with the world around her, connected to people from all areas of society (from the peasants on her estate to the US ambassador to Italy), she writes of the turmoil, the danger, and the bleakness of Italy in 1939 and 1940, as war went from a possibility to a dreadful reality. A Chill in the Air covers the beginning of a war whose catastrophic effects are documented in Origo's bestselling War in Val D'Orcia"--
Notes: "First published in Great Britain by Pushkin Press in 2017"--Title-page verso.