As Lucy Hughes-Hallett points out in her excellent introduction to this volume, Iris Origo, with typical modesty, referred in her memoirs to her “little war diary” in no more than a passing subordinate clause. Origo analyses the propaganda lies with the piercing intelligence that so impressed Frances Partridge and Virginia Woolf. Despite the wild rumours and the endless propaganda, Origo clearly saw the direction of events. “Total silence from Rome,” Origo notes. A Chill in the Air: An Italian War Diary 1939-1940 is published by Pushkin.

Source: The Guardian October 27, 2017 07:52 UTC