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Sofka Zinovieff had fallen in love with Greece as a student, but little suspected that years later she would return for good with an expatriate Greek husband and two young daughters. This book is a wonderfully fresh, funny, and inquiring account of her first year as an Athenian.
The whole family have to get to grips with their new life and identities: the children start school and tackle a new language, and Sofka's husband, Vassilis, comes home after half a lifetime away. Meanwhile, Sofka resolves to get to know her new city and become a Greek citizen, which turns out to be a process of Byzantine complexity. As the months go by, Sofka‘s discovers how memories of Athens' past haunt its present in its music, poetry, and history. She also learns about the difficult art of catching a taxi, the importance of smoking, the unimportance of time-keeping, and how to get your Christmas piglet cooked at the baker's.
Reviews
A beguiling blend of autobiography and travel swirled into a portrait of a city and a meditation on Greekness.
— Daily Telegraph
It is both a modest and a magnificently well-judged book, which anyone thinking of an Athenian trip ought to read.
— Times Literary Supplement
... full of insight and humour. It is subtle, penetrating and written with disarming clarity.
— Vogue
Charmingly recounts the first year of a new life in Athens with her ex-pat Greek husband and two daughters.
— The Bookseller
Zinovieff brings an affectionate and witty eye to the idiosyncracies- universal smoking, evil eyes, massive midnight dinners- of Greek life. She seems remarkably keen, in this engaging cameo of a country, to adopt some of them, too.
— The Independent
A wonderfully evocative account of moving to Athens. The obvious problems of adjusting to a new culture and language are tempered by some surprising discoveries.
— Betrams Summer Reading catalogue |
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Features
- Author: Sofka Zinovieff
- Format: Paperback
- Published: September 2005
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