The confines of the shadow

This collection of novels and short stories maps the Libyan city of Benghazi's transformation from a sleepy Ottoman backwater in the 1910s to the second capital of an oil-rich kingdom in the 1960s. Employing a cosmopolitan array of characters, ranging from Ottoman functionaries to Italian officers, it chronicles Italy's colonial experience, from the euphoria of conquest to the rise and fall of Fascism to Libya's independence in the 1950s, concluding with the discovery of the country's oil fields, which triggered the changes that led to Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year dictatorship.