An exploration of the landscape of early memory After being imprisoned with her family in a Japanese concentration camp, Dacia Maraini returns to her past. In sensuous detail, she describes Sicily, the town of Bagheria, and the ancestral villa to which she returned as a child after two horrific years of internment. Villa Valguarnera recalls the memory of Maraini's spiritual struggles and her rebellion against her elitist social class. She also discusses her experience of child abuse. Bagheria is a tale of corruption: Centuries of the town's past unfold alongside Maraini's family history as she details the involvement of the mafia in the architectural decimation of Bagheria in the 1970s.