War in Val D'Orcia is the elegantly simple chronicle of daily life at La Foce, a manor in a Tuscan no-man's land bracketed by foreign invasion and civil war. Writing with simplicity and grace, Iris Origo describes how she and her husband managed to help refugee children from Genoa and Turin, hide escaped Allied prisoners of war - and stand up to the Germans, who occupied La Foce in 1944 and forced the Origos to retreat under a hot June sun. It is a story of confusion and bewilderment as a peasant society is confronted by disaster and, in the space of a few months, a whole way of life is changed beyond recognition. It is also a story of tragedy and suffering, of individual courage, generosity and heroism.
