Canzone di GuerraIn typical Drndi style, the reader is offered a view of the past and the present through a collage of different genres from (pseudo) autobiography to documentary material and culinary recipes as the narrative explores different perspectives on the issue of emigration, the unresolved history of the Second World War, while emphasising the absurdity of politics of differences between neighbouring nations. Tea Radan, the narrator of the novel Canzone di

highest kind

It’s like eating a small cake

of personal and wider history

] a shining bright light

dresses like a bum

51 in total

He’s bending to her lips

it represents both a lasting memorial to the thousands of dead and ‘disappeared’ of the two countries’ civil conflicts

the banality of love

John Jordan (1930-88) was a leading light in the literary life of Dublin from the 1950s until his death in Cardiff in June 1988

Yet the only people who can help him include a Communist journalist

He can ‘pass’ as white