Adua, a Somali exile in Rome, recounts (to the Bernini elephant fountain) her failed efforts to become a movie star and her troubled relationship with her now deceased interpreter father Zoppe. In flashback chapters, Zoppe describes the racial violence he suffered in Italy during the 1934 Italian Abyssinian conflict and his return to Somalia. Will Adua now also return to Somalia to reclaim her family property? A sad but beautiful first novel.
