New Finnish Grammar by Diego Marani, translated by Judith Landry, takes as its protagonist a rescued sailor who has suffered a blow to the head. He has no memory, no language, and no identity when he is picked up from the quayside near the railway station at Trieste. A series of coincidences leads a doctor involved with his recovery to assume that the man is a Finn. The protagonist accepts this and begins to learn Finnish. He pursues his identity in Finland. This is at the end of the second world war.
Well worth reading. A sample from page 77, about half way through the book:-
Each day meant starting again from scratch. The moment my attention lapsed, the moment I allowed my mind to wander, all the good work would be undone. The words stayed with me, my knowledge of the language became stronger and more rooted, but any sense of truly belonging to that place would have vanished. I had a distinct suspicion that I was running headlong down the wrong road. In the innermost recesses of my unconscious I was plagued by the feeling that, within my brain, another brain was beating, buried alive.Some of us don't have the excuse of blunt force trauma.
