Through Forests and Mountains

Margaret Walker is a casual teacher. She has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Sydney and a Diploma in Education.
Between 1999 and 2001, she had six short stories published in Australia and the UK, and plunged head first into novel writing. His Most Italian City is her fifth novel but the first to be published, as she had a troubling tendency with the first four to give up after three rejections and start another one.
Her epiphany came in 2016 when she graduated with a Diploma in Professional Communication and actually learned a few things about editing and publishing. An understanding of the industry dispelled much of its mystique, and becoming a published author no longer seemed like the impossible dream.
Margaret likes history, research and day dreaming. She has her husband to thank for developing an interest in modern languages. She is presently translating a book of Partisan poetry, bought in a second-hand book store in Croatia, for her next novel about the Yugoslav Partisans.  
It is true that you should be careful what you wish for. Margaret’s adoption papers read: Nationality of mother, Yugoslavian. After forty years of research punctuated by adoption reunions (yes, there were several) she discovered that her mother came from Istria where the novel is set. She spoke Venetian, German, Italian and English but flew on a Yugoslav passport and, even today, opinions as to whether she was Yugoslavian or Italian divide the family.   
Claims have been made for the pro-Italian towns in Istria that ‘we were gentle people between the wars. There was not crime then as we know it today.’ However, we know from the Slovenian writer Boris Pahor that the fascists were burning and destroying Slavic culture from Trieste to Split at this time.
It was to investigate this apparent dichotomy that His Most Italian City was written.