Three Summers

Description

A gorgeous Greek modern classic about three sisters coming-of-age over the course of three summers, introduced by Polly Samson 'That summer we bought big straw hats. Maria's had cherries around the rim, Infanta's had forget-me-nots, and mine had poppies as red as fire. . .' Three Summers is a warm and tender tale of three sisters growing up in the countryside near Athens before the Second World War. Living in a ramshackle old house with their divorced mother are flirtatious, hot-headed Maria, 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 understand the strange ways of adults and decide what kind of adults they hope to become.

Karen Van Dyck is the Kimon A. Doukas Professor of Modern Greek Literature in the Classics Department at Columbia University. She writes on Modern Greek and Greek Diaspora literature, and gender and translation theory. Her translations include her edited and co-edited collections- The Rehearsal of Misunderstanding- Three Collections by Contemporary Greek Women Poets (Wesleyan, 1998); A Century of Greek Poetry (Cosmos, 2004); The Scattered Papers of Penelope- New and Selected Poems by Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke (Graywolf, 2009), a Lannan Translation selection; and The Greek Poets- Homer to the Present (Norton, 2010).

The written equivalent of lying in the sun eating figs. I liked it much more than Elena Ferrante's books, but that's the general ballpark, except jollier. As Polly Samson writes in the preface, it brings to mind I Capture the Castle. Gorgeous -- India Knight * Sunday Times * A dreamy modernist gem of a novel... elegant and striking * Publishers Weekly * A dreamy, cinematic tapestry of Greek village life * NPR * A leisurely, large-hearted coming-of-age novel, earthy and innocent, nostalgic and beautifully rendered * Kirkus * We must be grateful to the Penguin European Writers series, a precious venture in these dark times -- John Banville The sun has disappeared from books these days... You are one of those who pass it on -- Albert Camus to Margarita Liberaki Drifting blossom, girlish secrets and lantern-lit dances pervade the 1946 Greek classic Three Summers, by Margarita Liberaki, featuring three sisters on the brink of adulthood on a pre-civil-war country estate at Kifi ssia, outside Athens. Just reissued, this innocent gem is often compared to Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle * Country & Townhouse * With its sensuous prose, nostalgic charm, playful humour and evocation of burgeoning sexuality, this novel is the literary equivalent of a sun-soaked holiday in Greece * CultureWhisper *