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Esmond and Ilia : an unreliable memoir / Marina Warner ; with vignettes by Sophie Herxheimer.

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : New York Review Books, [2021]Description: 416 pages : illustrations ; 22 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781681376448
  • 168137644X
Subject(s):
Contents:
Part I 1944-1946: From Italy to England -- Magari -- Two Diamond Rings -- The Box Brownie -- A Hatbox -- Some Books She Brought With Her -- A Bundle of German Marks -- Brogues -- Nasturtium Sandwiches -- Postscript -- Part II 1947: To Egypt -- King Faruq's Bookplate -- The Rankers' Club Bridge Book -- The Cemetery at Rayol -- A Bill of Lading -- Part III 1947-1949: In Cairo -- Malesh -- Early memory i: Hoopoes -- A Record Collection, Early memory ii: Lice -- An Egyptian Cigarette Tin, Early memory iii: Being painted -- The Little Girl in the Picture, Early memory iv: My fairy doll -- A Pocket Dictionary, Early memory v: At the Great Pyramid -- A Powder Compact, Early memory vi: Learning things -- Part IV 1950-1951: Balm in Gilead -- Early memory vii: Being ill -- An Old Map, Early memory viii: 'Tiger' -- A Silver Photograph Frame -- Part V 1952: Revolution -- Early memory ix: The burned-out bookshop -- The Cairo Fire -- Shabti.
Summary: "Esmond and Ilia follows Marina Warner's beautiful, penniless young mother Ilia as she leaves southern Italy in 1945 to travel alone to London. Her husband, an English colonel, is still away in the war in the East as she begins to learn how to be Mrs. Esmond Warner, an Englishwoman. With diamond rings on her fingers and brogues on her feet, Ilia steps fearlessly into the world of cricket and riding. But, without prospect of work in a bleak, war-ravaged England, Esmond remembers the glorious ease of Cairo during his periods of leave from the desert campaign. There, they start a bookshop, a branch of W. H. Smith's. But growing resistance to foreign interests, especially British, erupts in the 1952 uprising, and the Cairo Fire burns the city clean. Evocative and imaginative, at once historical and speculative, this memoir powerfully resurrects the fraught union and unrequited hopes of Warner's parents. Memory intertwines richly with myth, the river Lethe feeling as real as the Nile. Vivid recollections of Cairo swirl with ever-present dreams of a city where Warner's parents, friends, and associates are still restlessly wandering"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library Biography WARNER, E. W283 Available 33111010849293
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

By one of the finest English writers of our time, a luminous memoir that travels from southern Italy to the banks of the Nile, capturing a lost past both personal and historical.

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, in spite of his connections, 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.

Deeply felt, closely observed, rich with strange lore, 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"--what memoir isn't?--and a lasting work of literature, lyrical, sorrowful, shaped by love and wonder.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 391-395) and index.

Part I 1944-1946: From Italy to England -- Magari -- Two Diamond Rings -- The Box Brownie -- A Hatbox -- Some Books She Brought With Her -- A Bundle of German Marks -- Brogues -- Nasturtium Sandwiches -- Postscript -- Part II 1947: To Egypt -- King Faruq's Bookplate -- The Rankers' Club Bridge Book -- The Cemetery at Rayol -- A Bill of Lading -- Part III 1947-1949: In Cairo -- Malesh -- Early memory i: Hoopoes -- A Record Collection, Early memory ii: Lice -- An Egyptian Cigarette Tin, Early memory iii: Being painted -- The Little Girl in the Picture, Early memory iv: My fairy doll -- A Pocket Dictionary, Early memory v: At the Great Pyramid -- A Powder Compact, Early memory vi: Learning things -- Part IV 1950-1951: Balm in Gilead -- Early memory vii: Being ill -- An Old Map, Early memory viii: 'Tiger' -- A Silver Photograph Frame -- Part V 1952: Revolution -- Early memory ix: The burned-out bookshop -- The Cairo Fire -- Shabti.

"Esmond and Ilia follows Marina Warner's beautiful, penniless young mother Ilia as she leaves southern Italy in 1945 to travel alone to London. Her husband, an English colonel, is still away in the war in the East as she begins to learn how to be Mrs. Esmond Warner, an Englishwoman. With diamond rings on her fingers and brogues on her feet, Ilia steps fearlessly into the world of cricket and riding. But, without prospect of work in a bleak, war-ravaged England, Esmond remembers the glorious ease of Cairo during his periods of leave from the desert campaign. There, they start a bookshop, a branch of W. H. Smith's. But growing resistance to foreign interests, especially British, erupts in the 1952 uprising, and the Cairo Fire burns the city clean. Evocative and imaginative, at once historical and speculative, this memoir powerfully resurrects the fraught union and unrequited hopes of Warner's parents. Memory intertwines richly with myth, the river Lethe feeling as real as the Nile. Vivid recollections of Cairo swirl with ever-present dreams of a city where Warner's parents, friends, and associates are still restlessly wandering"-- Provided by publisher.

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