Modern Greek Fiction
Roderick Beaton An Introduction to Modern Greek Literature (Oxford UP). A chronological survey of fiction and poetry from Independence to the early 1990s, with a useful discussion on the "Language Question". Maro Douka Fool's Gold (Kedros, Athens; Central Books, UK). Describes an upper-class young woman's involvement, and subsequent disillusionment, with the clandestine resistance to the junta. Apostolos Doxiades Uncle Petros and the Goldbach Conjecture (Faber & Faber, UK). Self-translated from the Greek; an excellent read despite the mathematical puzzle at the heart of the novel. Eugenia Fakinou The Seventh Garment (Serpent's Tail). Greek history, from the War of Independence to the colonels' junta, told through the life stories (interspersed in counterpoint) of three generations of women. Andreas Franghias The Courtyard (Kedros, Athens; Central Books, UK). This well-observed but relentlessly depressing tale follows the struggling (and just plain scheming) inhabitants of a working-class Athens shanty town during the early 1950s. Stratis Haviaras When the Tree Sings (Picador; Simon & Schuster, both o/p) and The Heroic Age (Penguin, o/p). A two-part, lightly fictionalized autobiography about coming of age in Greece in the 1940s, by the former poetry curator of Harvard University library. Written in English because Haviaris felt his experiences too keenly to set them down in Greek. Nikos Kazantzakis Whether in intricate Greek or translated into inadequate English, Kazantzakis can be hard-going, yet the power of his writing still shines through. Zorba the Greek is a surprisingly dark, nihilistic work, worlds away from the two-dimensional characters of the film. On the other hand, the movie version of The Last Temptation of Christ provoked riots amongst Orthodox fanatics in Athens in 1989. Christ Recrucified (published in the US as The Greek Passion ) resets the Easter drama against the backdrop of Christian/Muslim relations on nineteenth-century Crete, while Freedom or Death (published in the US as Captain Michalis ) chronicles the rebellions of late nineteenth-century Crete. The Fratricides portrays a family riven by the civil war, while Report to Greco - perhaps the most accessible of his works - is an autobiographical exploration of his Cretanness/Greekness (all Faber & Faber; Touchstone). Artemis Leontis , ed Greece: A Traveller's Literary Companion (Whereabouts Press, San Francisco, US). An overdue idea, brilliantly executed: various regions of the country as portrayed in (very) short fiction or essays by modern Greek writers. A recommended antidote to the often condescending Grand Tourist accounts. Kostas Mourselas Red Dyed Hair (Kedros, Athens; Central Books, UK). A politically incorrect picaresque epic - imagine Zorba crossed with Last Exit to Brooklyn - of a particularly dysfunctional Pireas parea (the group you hang out with from youth till middle age). At its centre stands anti-hero Emmanuel Retsinas (aka Louis), mad, bad and very dangerous to know. A particularly good translation of a Greek original that's still selling well, and formed the basis of a popular TV series. Stratis Myrivilis * Life in the Tomb (Quartet; New England UP). A harrowing and unorthodox war memoir, based on the author's experience on the Macedonian front during 1917-18, well translated by Peter Bien. Completing a kind of trilogy are two later novels, set on the north coast of Lesvos, Myrivilis's homeland: The Mermaid Madonna and The Schoolmistress with the Golden Eyes (Efstathiadis, Athens). Translations of these are not so good, and tend to be heavily abridged. Alexandhros Papadiamantis The Murderess (Writers & Readers). A landmark novel set on the island of Skiathos at the beginning of the nineteenth century, in which an old woman, appalled by the fate that awaits them in adulthood, concludes that little girls are better off dead. Also available is a collection of short stories, Tales from a Greek Island (Johns Hopkins UP). Nick Papandreou Father Dancing (Penguin). Thinly veiled roman a clef by the late Andreas's younger son. Papandreou Senior, not too surprisingly, comes across as a gasbag and petty domestic tyrant. Yannis Ritsos Iconostasis of Anonymous Saints (Kedros, Athens; Central Books, London). The first three instalments of a projected nine-volume autobiographical novel. The "anonymous saints" are the characters of these vaguely sequential vignettes. Book 1, Ariostos the Observant , written during World War II, is, depending on your view, either a surrealist masterpiece or self-indulgent rubbish; Book 2, Such Strange Things , and Book 3, With a Nudge of the Elbow , are more straightforwardly based on Ritsos' peers and life events. Dido Sotiriou Farewell Anatolia (Kedros, Athens; Central Books, London). A perennial favourite since its initial appearance in 1962, this epic chronicles the traumatic end of Greek life in Asia Minor, from World War I to the catastrophe of 1922, as narrated by a fictionalized version of the author's father. Stratis Tsirkas Drifting Cities (Kedros, Athens; Central Books, London). Set by turns in the Jerusalem, Cairo and Alexandria of World War II, this unflinchingly honest and humane epic of a Greek army hero secretly working for the Leftist resistance got the author expelled from the Communist Party. Vassilis Vassilikos Z (Four Walls Eight Windows). A novel based closely enough on events - the 1963 political assassination of Gregoris Lambrakis in Thessaloniki - to be banned under the colonels' junta, and brilliantly filmed by Costa-Gavras in 1968. Alki Zei Achilles' Fiancee (Kedros, Athens; Central Books, London). An often moving portrait of the friendships and intrigues amongst a collection of communist exiles floating between Athens, Rome, Moscow, Paris and Tashkent in the years between the civil war and the colonels' junta. Largely autobiographical, it captures the flavour of the illusions, nostalgia and party-line schisms endemic in this community.
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