Top Highlights

• Dorothy Carrington was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1986, was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Corsica in 1991 and was made an MBE in 1995. She was also a Fellow of the Royal Literary Society and of the Royal Historical Society, and a Member of the International Commission for the History of Representativ...
• The Corsica that she first discovered was still reeling from the effects of the two World Wars. Around 20,000 men had been lost in the first war, which had led to more hardship as thousands emigrated in the aftermath. Occupation by both the Italians and Germans followed during the second war, although national pride was reinforced as Ajaccio became...
• Dorothy Carrington decided to become a writer at the age of eight, having won a prize for a poem in a children’s magazine.
• Polyphonic singing is now heard and recorded all over the island
• I had read such books on Corsica as I could lay hands on: Mérimée’s Colomba, a dramatic tale of blood vengeance; Boswell’s exhilarating account of his visit to Pasquale Paoli, the Corsican leader who had freed his country from Genoese rule and given it a liberal constitution much in advance of his time.