Translation

My Greek novel Οι κόρες της Μεσσήνης

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My publisher was recently visiting Hydra and spoke to a bookseller there who has been selling the Greek translation of ‘Daughters of Messene’ Οι κόρες της Μεσσήνης and was planning to order more in. This prompted me to look at any new Greek reviews and I found this wonderful review. I’ve had to use Google translate and I’m just going to post some of the parts of this review that gave me a heart glow.

If you speak and read fluent Greek I will post a link to the full review below. In the meantime:

Όμορφη και στρωτή αφήγηση καθ’ όλη τη διάρκεια του μυθιστορήματος με μια πλοκή τόσο όσο χρειάζεται ώστε να προκαλεί το ενδιαφέρον του αναγνώστη να διαβάσει τη συνέχεια με λαχτάρα.

Beautiful and layered storytelling throughout the novel with just enough of a plot to keep the reader interested and eager to read more.

Με ποιητικό λυρισμό αγγίζει με τη λογοτεχνική της πένα θέματα που έχουν σημαδέψει γενιές ολόκληρες  και καταφέρνει να τους δώσει το ύφος και την αξία  που τους αναλογεί. Χωρίς μελοδραματισμούς, η συγγραφέας μέσα από την πορεία της συγκεκριμένης οικογένειας, μιλάει για τις γυναίκες που έμειναν και υπέμειναν τα πάντα στη διχασμένη Ελλάδα, για τις γυναίκες που μετανάστευσαν στην άλλη άκρη του κόσμου για να ξεχάσουν και να αναζητήσουν ένα καλύτερο αύριο χωρίς όμως να ξεχάσουν τα ήθη, τα έθιμα και τις αντιλήψεις  τους, για τις γυναίκες που πάντα αναζητούν και παλεύουν.

With poetic lyricism, she touches with her literary pen subjects that have marked entire generations and manages to give them the style and value that is attributed to them. Without melodrama, the author, through the path of this particular family, talks about the women who stayed and endured everything in divided Greece, about the women who migrated to the other side of the world to forget and look for a better tomorrow without forgetting their morals, customs and perceptions, about women always seeking and fighting.

Τέλος, θα ήθελα να να τονίσω ότι μέσα από αυτό το υπέροχο, αληθινό και συγκινητικό μυθιστόρημα που μας ταξιδεύει στο χρόνο, παρελθόν-παρόν, δίνοντας μας και την ελπίδα του μέλλοντος, η συγγραφέας δίνει το ιστορικό πλαίσιο της Ελλάδας και αποτυπώνει τη ζωή κάθε Έλληνα των τελευταίων εκατό χρόνων μαζί με τα ήθη, τα έθιμα, τη κουλτούρα, τη καθημερινή μας συμπεριφορά, την ιδιοσυγκρασία μας, τα όμορφα αλλά και τα στραβά μας, αλήθειες που βλέποντας τες αποτυπωμένες στο χαρτί, εμένα προσωπικά με έκαναν να χαμογελάσω, γιατί διέκρινα το χιούμορ της αλλά και την αλήθεια σε όλα αυτά που περιέγραψε και πραγματικά  είμαστε αυτοί οι άνθρωποι

Finally, I would like to emphasize that through this wonderful, true and moving novel that takes us through time, past-present, giving us hope for the future, the author gives the historical context of Greece and captures the life of every Greek of the last hundred years together with the manners, the customs, the culture, our daily behavior, our temperament, the beautiful but also the ugly, truths that, seeing them printed on paper, made me personally smile, because I saw the her humor but also the truth in everything she described and we really are these people.

Οι κόρες της Μεσσήνης-Rainey Smith Maggie-Εκδόσεις Κέδρος (review)

Microwaving happiness

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It’s not my own kitchen, nor
my own language, so making
mac'n'cheese means using
Google to read instructions
on the pasta packet, the
cheese label and microwave

settings in translation include
energy, medicine, middle,
defrost, thermal insulation
time/sad child, perplexingly
making me wonder if indeed
happiness can be microwaved

do the older women I see
bent almost doubled, lifting
swathes of recyclables onto
hand carts, securing mountains
of cardboard taller than
themselves, know about this?

close by in sleek black luxury
behind tinted windows lurk 
Gucci Ummas in designer shoes
parking on the pavement to
slip into buy freshly made tofu
slipping through swathes of steam

down the road further at the
oddly named Richmall, you’ll
find the older ummas wearing
faded visors and floral shirts
towing hand trolleys filled
with store-bought tofu

what if they all knew they
could microwave happiness
would they want to?

Daughters of Messene

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Daughters of Messene (now in translation and for sale in Greece)

I’ve talked about this before.  The tricky balance between self-promotion and total modesty. As a writer, total modesty probably no longer does the trick. It’s a shame. It would be amazing if our work stood on its own merit. And indeed, it should. But it also needs a little push/shove along.  The trouble is, if you shout too often, people become averse to your shouting. And if you don’t shout out at all, your writing achievements (however modest in the scheme of things) may not reach all their possible audience.

So, here I am to bask once more in the glow and delight of having my third novel, a story with a strong Greek flavour, that sprang out from a not very well known true story of the migration of young Greek women to New Zealand in the sixties… now translated and on sale in Greece through Kedros Publishers Athens (to whom I am most grateful).

One of the lovely serendipitous moments researching this novel in 2007, I have written about before. It was my lucky encounter with Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor at his splendid home in the Mani on his Name Day. To be there, with the ‘local’s and to share this magical moment, was unforgettable.  On that day, Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor, generously signed my copy of his book Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese. I had found and read the book while in Greece and was bedazzled by his magical flights of language and historical observations, the marvellous segues.  He signed my copy of his book with his usual motif of a small flock of flying birds.

A reader of my blog, Diana Wright, managed to decipher the inscription as I was unable to. It says ‘with all goodness’.

To my great delight, the cover for the Greek translation of ‘Daughters of Messene’ includes a similar flock of birds.  This is pure coincidence and a lovely one at that. Indeed, my novel includes a moment of migrating birds, so these links are quite perfect.

So, here is the very splendid cover for you to admire and hopefully if you speak and read Greek to tempt you to buy the book.  Plus a picture of Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor’s inscription in my copy of his book.