How Accurate is 'The Displaced'?
Before I wrote The Displaced, I researched and co-authored Outcast Europe, a historical study of refugees and relief-workers in the Second World War. For all sorts of reasons, I couldn’t simply cut-and-paste paragraphs from the historical study into the novel. However, my previous research gave me a solid base from which to start: I knew the context, I knew UNRRA, I just had…
How to Buy The Displaced
The best way: go to the Abergavenny Small Press website: https://www.asppublishing.co.uk/product-page/the-displaced-a-novel-by-sharif-gemie The Displaced is on sale at the Cynon Valley Museum (Aberdare): Depot Road, Gadlys, Aberdare CF44 8DL. An e-version is available from Kobo. And, if you must, it’s also on Amazon.
THE DEDICATION: ANGELA PLATT
Unfortunately I can’t be sure of the exact date: probably April 2015, possibly earlier. I wasn’t in great shape. I was widowed, my job at the university was under threat and my new relationship with an Italian woman had come to an end. I heard of a Creative Writing class that was starting just up the hill, about two minutes from my house.…
The Displaced: Further Reading
i. Contemporary Eye-Witness Accounts Norman Lewis, Naples ’44: An Intelligence Officer in the Italian Labyrinth (London: Eland 1983) To my mind, this is the great source work. A British Intelligence officer serving with the American Army in the invasion of Naples, he was sufficiently distant from the American forces to maintain a critical perspective. Concise and perceptive. A convincing, troubling account of a…