ABSTRACT
In a Bulgaria swiftly overtaken by the communist regime, Dorina Ilieva-Simpson (1925–1991) was viewed primarily as the daughter of the allegedly “fascist” and bourgeois writer, Nencho Iliev. She was forced into exile and, as a consequence of marriage to a British diplomat, found herself in colonial Mauritius where her eastern European status led to her rejection as a “bloody foreigner” by the society of British colonial wives. This chapter explores how her experience of ostracisation inspired her devotion to the cause of the indigenous disabled. She founded and developed systems of care for the disabled, many of whom were immobile due to polio or confinement for mental disease. Based on official sources and Dorina’s autobiographical writings, this chapter demonstrates how her journey from Bulgaria to Mauritius provided the context for a personal transformation from social exclusion to an extraordinary engagement on behalf of the marginalised.
