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Marisa Parker
a book bubble about
Goodbye to Italia
Biographies & Memoirs
Author Insight
Prisoners
There’s no way you can look at the word, prisoner, and not think of an unfortunate or evil connotation. I imagine most people immediately think of a prisoner in a cell. Found guilty, by the rules of the land, for some misdeed, they are now paying the price: their freedom has been taken away and possibly a long stretch of detention yawns ahead of them. Unless we’ve been hiding from social media, we all know that a prisoner can be of a self-made status too, or that a state of affairs is thrust upon them. My father, Eugenio, was a prisoner of war in a South African POW camp for six years. He was captured very early on in the play, and my award-winning book, Goodbye to Italia, is about that time whilst, back in Italy, my mum is much younger, but suffering all the same. #prisoner #Africa #Italy #war
Book Excerpt
Goodbye to Italia
‘You are thinking on this too much, Eugenio,’ Ronzoni’s voice rasps out as a smoke stream twirls out of his mouth from a cigarette he has just inhaled. ‘We should accept this armistice. They will not punish us. We were just doing our job, our duty. Everyone was just following orders.’
I don’t know so much. I look at him. ‘They are wanting us to state that our political affiliations have changed. That all that we stood for is just … just washed away, as if it never existed.’
‘No. They want us to accept that everything has changed and that we know that the Axis parties are defeated. You know that much is true. It means that by signing we can go home to a peaceful Italy.’
Doubts still fill me. What if he is wrong? Of course, I know we have lost the war. Of course, I want more than anything to go back home. But will they truly allow us to go back without any further punishment? Ronzoni just seems to be accepting this as if he hasn’t a care in the world. How can he be so calm when I have all this churning inside of me? Is it better to try and escape now or to trust in the hands of God and hope that the victors will be as generous?
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