Location Guide

Because of its industrial and strategic importance, Genoa was subject to heavy bombardment by Allied air and naval forces. This lasted from June 1940, when Italy entered the war on the Axis side, to March 1945, not long before the Resistance liberated the city. (Sidenote: while partisan forces played a significant role in liberating Italy, Genoa was the only city where the Nazis surrendered directly to the Resistance. It’s a source of pride to this day.) Towards the end of the war, realising that defeat was imminent, the Germans also caused serious damage to Genoa’s seafront, exploding breakwaters, laying mines, scuttling ships, and wrecking equipment.

The human cost of all this is very hard to calculate. Thousands of people were killed or injured, and hundreds of thousands made homeless. Meanwhile, the geography of the city was irrevocably changed, with massive damage to civilian infrastructure as well as military and industrial targets. This means that the Genoa of 1944, the one inhabited by Anna and Massimo and Vittorio, doesn’t really exist any more. To a great extent, we have to imagine it.

When I started work on this book, I had already fallen in love with the city of Genoa. I wanted to be able to walk in the footsteps of my characters, to get some insight into their world. That’s why the real places in my story – and most of them are real – are places you can visit now, whether in person or on Google Earth. I’ve created this map to show where they are. Here’s a snapshot, too:

If you decide to visit Genoa, and I hope you will, it’s always worth taking a tour. There are plenty of excellent guides, but my personal recommendation is Fabrizia Scortecci, who was extremely helpful with my research process. Fabrizia offers tours in Italian, English and Polish, and she’s absolutely brilliant. Check out her offerings here.

Damage to the Palazzo Reale in January 1944. Unknown author/public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

“Before long the guns began to rattle, and the earth all around shook, and the noise and chatter of the tunnel gave way to a terrible, mute tension. But you can’t be scared all the time, no matter how bad things are; your brain simply won’t let you. At some point you have to sleep, and so after a while, I curled up on my side with my coat over me and my bag under my head, and I slept like an exhausted animal. I didn’t wake until the all clear sounded at dawn.”