Book picks similar to
Serpent and Lily: A Novella with a Manifesto: The Sickness of the Age by Nikos Kazantzakis
greek-literature
greek
favorites
fiction
Red Dyed Hair
Kostas Mourselas - 1989
Louis is the "almost man," once and forever lumpen and anarcho-communist, sometime circus daredevil, part-time yacht captain, full-time subverter of propriety, morals, order. Destroyer, builder, provocateur, catalyst extraordinary. Spanning four decades of contemporary Greek life as seen from the bottom of the barrel, the novel is an inspired mixture of social satire and political history, a compendium of the bizarre, the erotic, the banal and the unbearable - peopled by a crazed yet touching cross-section of social rejects and climbers, betrayed leftists and police informers, of con-men become businessmen, of whores and bouzouki singers, pimps and greengrocers. In scene embedded within scene, Red Dyed Hair spins a tale of social and personal cowardice and treachery against a distant backdrop of courage betrayed at the cost of death.
Three Summers
Margarita Liberaki - 1946
Living in a big old house surrounded by a beautiful garden are Maria, the oldest sister, as sexually bold as she is eager to settle down and have a family of her own; beautiful but distant Infanta; and dreamy and rebellious Katerina, through whose eyes the story is mostly observed. Over three summers, the girls share and keep secrets, fall in and out of love, try to figure out their parents and other members of the tribe of adults, take note of the weird ways of friends and neighbors, worry about and wonder who they are. Karen Van Dyck’s translation captures all the light and warmth of this modern Greek classic.
The Third Wedding
Costas Taktsis - 1963
The German Occupation, the Civil War and life itself seen through the eyes of two Athenian women.
Z
Vassilis Vassilikos - 1966
The assassination of "Z," a leftist delegate to Greece's Parliament, sparks an exploration into the lives of the hired killers, bourgeois witnesses and political figures behind the killing.
Daphnis and Chloe
Longus
Taken in by a goatherd and a shepherd respectively, and raised near the town of Mytilene, they grow to maturity unaware of one another's existence - until the mischievous god of love, Eros, creates in them a sudden overpowering desire for one another. A masterpiece among early Greek romances, attracting both high praise and moral disapproval, this work has proved an enduringly fertile source of inspiration for musicians, writers and artists from Henry Fielding to Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Maurice Ravel. Longus transforms familiar themes from the romance genre - including pirates, dreams, and the supernatural - into a virtuoso love story that is rich in insight, humorous and ironical in its treatment of human sexual experience.
Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture: A Novel of Mathematical Obsession
Apostolos Doxiadis - 1992
His feverish and singular pursuit of this goal has come to define his life. Now an old man, he is looked on with suspicion and shame by his family-until his ambitious young nephew intervenes.Seeking to understand his uncle's mysterious mind, the narrator of this novel unravels his story, a dramatic tale set against a tableau of brilliant historical figures-among them G. H. Hardy, the self-taught Indian genius Srinivasa Ramanujan, and a young Kurt Gödel. Meanwhile, as Petros recounts his own life's work, a bond is formed between uncle and nephew, pulling each one deeper into mathematical obsession, and risking both of their sanity.
Pope Joan: Translated & Adapted from the Greek
Emmanuel Rhoides - 1866
When Papissa Joanna was first published in Athens in 1886 it created a sensation. The book was banned and its author excommunicated. It nevertheless brought him immediate fame and the work established itself securely in the history of modern Greek literature. Subsequently Durrell, one of the most important British writers of the 20th century, created a masterpiece in its own right—a dazzling concoction presented with the deftest touch.
The Broken Wings
Kahlil Gibran - 1912
With great sensitivity, Gibran describes his passion as a youth for Selma Karamy, the girl of Beirut who first unfolded to him the secrets of love. But it is a love that is doomed by a social convention which forces Selma into marriage with another man. Portraying the happiness and infinite sorrow of his relationship with Selma, Gibran at the same time probes the spiritual meaning of human existence with profound compassion. **Lightning Print On Demand Title
The Last Black Cat
Eugene Trivizas - 2001
But then we knew. Black cats were disappearing. Silktail was the first. Then Whiny, Giuseppe, Rameses, Blackie, Lothario, and Bijou…" Island life had been good for the street cats—stealing fish, laying in the sun, singing under the stars. This is the story of dark deeds, cool cats, and The Society of the Superstitious. Get your paws on it! Eugene Trivizas, who has been called the "J.K. Rowling of Greece," is the winner of many national and international prizes. He is the author of more than a hundred books, including an acclaimed collaboration with Helen Oxenbury, The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig.
Circe
Madeline Miller - 2018
But Circe is a strange child - not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power - the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.
Homer's Daughter
Robert Graves - 1955
Graves believes also that the author of the Odyssey was not the blind and bearded Homer of legend, but the young woman who calls herself Nausica in the story.
Callirhoe
Chariton
Chariton's Callirhoe, subtitled Love Story in Syracuse, is a fast-paced historical romance of the first century CE and the oldest extant novel.
Jason and the Golden Fleece (The Argonautica)
Apollonius of Rhodes
The only surviving Greek epic to bridge the gap between Homer and late antiquity, this epic poem is the crowning literary achievement of the Ptolemaic court at Alexandria, written by Appolonius of Rhodes in the third century BC. Appollonius explores many of the fundamental aspects of life in a highly original way: love, deceit, heroism, human ignorance of the divine, and the limits of science, and offers a gripping and sometimes disturbing tale in the process. This major new prose translation combines readability with accuracy and an attention to detail that will appeal to general readers and classicists alike.