At first, Esmond and Ilia could be a fairy-tale romance.

[Warner] went on a treasure hunt, mining a dragon’s trove of letters, diaries, photographs, newspaper clippings, clothes and other relics that retained talismanic force.

Warner is an expert on all facets of myth, legend and fairy tale, whose writings have explored everything from Ovid to the Brothers Grimm to the Arabian Nights. As such, it makes sense that even a personal work recounting eight years of her parents’ life should be envisioned as a story of the power of narrative, the clash of cultures and the role of the heroine, told by means of lore, symbols and allegory.

... a book of desire and its frustrations: the excitement of romance but also its curdling; the archival fever that takes over, that enlivens and maddens the historian.

Fanciful.

A detail-rich reminiscence of the author’s parents’ lives in postwar colonial Egypt.