Granite Island: a Portrait of Corsica - Couverture souple

Dorothy Carrington (1910-2002) was a gifted travel writer and historian who would not merely describe a place, but would delve into the very core of a people's identity. Having once intended to wander the world and write many books about many places, she was so captivated by Corsica on her first visit to the island, in 1948, that she never left, and after writing a definitive portait of Corsica, Granite Island (1971), she went on to explore the curious family background of the most famous Corsican, in Napoleon and his Parents on the Threshold of History (1988), while her final book, The Dream Hunters of Corsica (1995), examines the mysterious dark side of the Corsican psyche.

'Get away from here before you're completely bewitched and enslaved...' Dorothy Carrington was told, while sitting in a fisherman's cafe at the magically quiet midday hour. But enslaved she was. GRANITE ISLAND, much more than a travel book, grew out of years spent in Corsica and is an incomparably vivid and delightful portrait. For the first time Corsica is brought to light as a vital element in Europe: a highly individualistic island culture whose people have nurtured their love of freedom and political justice, as well as their pride, hospitality and poetry.