Goodbye to Italia

Why I Had to Write

I dabbled in writing in my teenage years. I loved immersing myself in fictional Enid Blyton stories and then, the J.R.R.Tolkien trilogy. I never considered during my young adult years of undertaking a writing marathon. It was over a cup of tea, however that fate took control. As my mum reminisced about ‘her Italian childhood days’, I suddenly grabbed a pen and a notepad, and started scribbling. Then, faced with all these wonderful accounts, I realized the enormity of the task ahead of me. I had just completed my master’s degree, as a mature-age university student. So, my family demonstrated amazing generosity when I announced my intent to write about my Italian family’s story. What commenced as a romantic quest to create a legacy turned into a burning ambition to research, capture and recreate the lives of my Italian parents during World War 2 in Italy and Africa. With a thirteen-year age gap between them, and the discovery of my father’s diaries that he secretly wrote in Zonderwater, a South African, Prisoner of War Camp, I had ample content to feed my passion. The support of my family through this was extraordinary. Now, with two award-winning books to my name, I have an incredible sense of achievement. #writeyourstory #whatisyourhistory