Originally published in Italian, this collection of novels and short stories follows Benghazi's transformation from Ottoman rule, through Italian colonisation, and up to King Idris's kingdom in the 1960s. Employing a cosmopolitan array of characters, ranging from Ottoman functionaries, to Sanussi aristocrats and Italian officers, Spina chronicles Italy's colonial experience from the euphoria of conquest to the rise and fall of Fascism to the country's independence in the 1950s . The book concludes with the discovery of Libya's oil fields, which led to Gaddafi's reign.