I was excited to read Igiaba Scego this #WomenInTranslationMonth, an Italian author of Somali origin. Although she is prolific in Italian, sadly only two of her books have been translated into English so far - this one, and Beyond Babylon. I really enjoyed reading Adua, and I hope more of her work will be translated in the future, especially her autobiographical book, La Mia Casa è Dove Sono (if I get desperate I'll have to brush off my Italian and read it in the original!)

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Adua follows two main storylines. That of Adua, a so-called 'Old Lira' woman who has lived in Italy for more than 40 years after she fled Somalia in the 70s to escape her father and the restrictive regime. And then we also hear her father's story, when he also lived in Italy before he became a husband and a father, working as an interpreter and translator under Mussolini's fascist regime. Although the two storylines don't really come together, they are insightful on their own.

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When Zoppe came to Italy, he was met with hostility and violence, the only kindness he was shown was from a Jewish family who were also suffering discrimination at the time. Adua's POV, especially when she was still a child in Somalia, was interesting. As a child, Adua had no idea what fascism or colonialism was; all she knew was that Italy, especially Rome, was painted as some sort of paradise. Needless to say when she arrived there with promises of becoming a movie star, the reality was altogether different.

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As well as those two waves of immigration, Scego also touches on more current issues: migrants resorting to dangerous crossings of the Mediterranean to escape their country. Adua's husband is one such person, but we don't hear that much about him. However, Scego's afterword is helpful to understanding her aim with this book, as she said she didn't want to perform an analysis of these three periods in time, but transform them into experiences and emotions lived by her characters.

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You don’t often hear about Italy’s colonial past in literature (The Shadow King addresses it, still on my TBR!), so I'm grateful to Scego for illuminating us. I do wish it had been a bit longer though!