“Bora” by Anna Maria Mori and Nelida Milani (Frassinelli, 1998, 240 p.) contains the testimony of two women, natives of Pola, whose young lives were affected by the tragic events of the Second World War with the exodus of the Italian population from Istria, Fiume, Dalmatia. This marked forever, for them as for many of us natives of those lands, the irreversible laceration between the “before” and the “after”. At the end of the book there is a chronology of the main historical events that concern us. It was written by Antonella Scarpa, who, we learn, “lives in Venice where she studies contemporary history, and works as a librarian. Daughter of an exile who has...