First Words, a Childhood in Fascist Italy, by Rosetta Loy, translated by Gregory Conti #BookReview

I knew when I was recently reading The Sweet Hills of Florence by Jan Wallace Dickinson that I had something on my shelves about fascism in Italy, but I couldn’t remember the name of the book or where I’d put it.  It was when I was completing the meme My Blog’s Name in Books that I came across it: First Words, a Childhood in Fascist Italy is a brief memoir by Italian journalist Rosetta Loy (b.1931), and it traces the Italy of her privileged childhood alongside the oppression of the Jews and the reaction of the Vatican.

There’s much more about fascism than a child could have known at the time.  Rosetta is five years old when the book begins, and her life is about playing in the park and at home; about listening to stories and singing songs; about beginning school and her brother beginning secondary school…