Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa is where the novel begins. Forty years after the war has ended, Hirut sits at the Addis Ababa train station and waits for Ettore Navarra so she can return his box of photographs. The city is also where Ettore lives and runs a photography business after the war. It is the place where the Italians invade at the start of the conflict in 1935.

The Port of Massawa

The Port of Massawa is located in Eritrea. The Italian armies arrive here when they initially invade Ethiopia. While sailing into the port, Ettore is overcome with his circumstances, unable to imagine how this new land will impact the rest of his life, and later become his home. The presence of the Italian ships in the port signals war to the Abyssinian people.

Debark

Debark, a region in Ethiopia, is the land surround the unclaimed no-man's-land where the...