I am a foreignerdetested as cancer. As a homosexual in the 1940s, Carlo Guercio is, of course, forced to hide it.

He documents his anguished life into a series of chapters titled LOmosessuale. Even the title itself suggests that he considers being homosexual as his entire identity, and that in hiding it, has been consumed by it. The fact that the title is written in Italian further suggests that this is a confession to be read only after his death. The quote above is the end of Carlos trio of comparisons of hated things to himself, showing that, in this world which criminalises homosexuality, he and his kind are as hated and outcast as incurable diseases.

We had become anonymous. This is again from Carlos eyes. As he and his fellow soldiers struggle on through Konitsa, battling freezing conditions with no food, he notes, with an aptness that is his trademark, how starvation and exhaustion change men. His comrades have been reduced to little more than animals, with all personality and individuality gone, leaving only extreme hunger and the waning will to survive left.

Dont ask me. Youd have to ask a Greek. As one of only few Italians on a Greek island entirely opposed to them, Captain Corelli experiences a struggle for national identity undoubtedly typical of many men who fought in other countries during the Second World War. On first arrival, he aims to act entirely as he has ordered to: to treat the Greeks with firmness and, if necessary, force. However, after a spell on Cephallonia and meeting its people he begins to question the forces which drive him, and struggles to believe that bad things can happen to such a good place. He also frequently wishes to be Greek in order to be with Pelagia, and also to avoid the inevitable conflict and death he will ultimately have to experience in order to survive.