The Girl from Borgo

Cetona—her Tuscan "gingerbread town in the hills," as she calls it—is populated by kind-hearted, genuine, and cantankerous folks whose lives are rooted in farming, artisanship, and the routine of an ancient and familiar place. Among them, Sybil becomes a young woman, falls in love, and experiences true home. At twenty, inspired by her American parents, she comes to the United States for college and stays on to build a career and a life. Leaving Cetona behind, however, turns out to be an uprooting event. Home continues to inhabit her, always calling her back. Pulled between places and loyalties, she cannot stay put, and finally she returns to Cetona for a year during which she struggles to find out whether she belongs. This intimate memoir of a life both blessed and torn captures the longing and rootlessness that follow the experience of growing up between cultures. It resonates with mesmerizing beauty and joy of rediscovery, as well as the grief of leaving things behind only to search for them again. The Girl from Borgo is a tender ode to a place and a people. Above all, it's a story of love.