The Levantines

This historical novel, published in 1961, is set in the Italian community of northern Egypt in the interwar period and during the Second World War. I read it during Women in Translation Month. The central character, Daniela, has been raised as an orphan by her grandmother. As such, her character is a microcosm of the Levantine experience — not knowing whether they belong to Europe or to North Africa; not belonging to either the Arab community or the colonising British community; ostracised during the war; and disappearing without trace in its aftermath.

The author, Fausta Cialente (born 29 November 1898), the daughter of an Italian army officer, was a native of Sardinia but spent much of her childhood moving from place to place. When she married in 1921, she and her composer husband went to live in Alexandria, the main city of Egypt's Mediterranean coast. She completed her first novel, Natalia, in 1927 but it was not published until 1930 after she had made an impressive literary debut with the long story (it's a new term for me — apparently it falls somewhere between short story and novella), Marianna, in 1929. The novel Natalia explored the narrator’s memories of childhood and early adulthood; were it available in English I would have it read it as it includes the death of her father in the First World War and her correspondence with a young soldier on the front. Her second novel, wholly set in Egypt, was published in 1936. Involved in anti-fascist and resistance activities, her literary career was put on hold. She returned to Italy in 1947 but it was not until 1961 that this, her next novel, was published. She went on to write four more novels as well as a collection of short stories. Her final novel, Le quattro ragazze Wieselberger (The Four Wieselberger Girls) won the Premio Strega (Italy's most prestigious literary prize) in 1976.

Daniela, the orphan protagonist, seeks to understand her own background in conversation with her guardian grandmother:
“My grandmother was talking loudly, as she nearly always did. She was getting angry with Livia, which was not at all unusual, either, saying scornfully that Livia had made her miserable bit of money during the Great War, helping smugglers on the beach, which was then completely deserted, but no one had managed to find out how on earth she had landed up in Egypt, and with whom.”
There are other snippets about the First World War as the memories of different characters are explored.
Soàd, her grandmother's servant, tells Daniela what she wants to know about her early childhood:
“that immediately after the 'accident' my grandmother sent someone to fetch me in Italy. The Great War was on at the time and we made the journey in a convoy, guarded from attack, threatened by German submarines.”