Orthokostá
A Novel
by Thanassis Valtinos
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Pub Date Jun 28 2016 | Archive Date Jun 03 2016
Description
A preeminent work of modern Greek literature, this provocative novel poses difficult questions about the nation’s Nazi occupation and early Civil War years
First published in 1994 to a storm of controversy, Thanassis Valtinos's probing novel Orthokostá defied standard interpretations of the Greek Civil War. Through the documentary-style testimonies of multiple narrators, among them the previously unheard voices of right-wing collaborationists, Valtinos provides a powerful, nuanced interpretation of events during the later years of Nazi occupation and the early stages of the nation's Civil War. His fictionalized chronicle gives participants, victims, and innocent bystanders equal opportunity to bear witness to such events as the burning of Valtinos's home village, the detention and execution of combatants and civilians in the monastery of Orthokostá, and the revenge killings that ensued.
As a transforming work of literature, this book redefined established methods of fiction; as a work of revisionist history, it changed the way Greece understands its own past. Now, through this masterful translation of Orthokostá, English-language readers have full access to the tremendous vitality of Valtinos's work and to the divisive Civil War experiences that continue to echo in Greek politics and events today.
Thanassis Valtinos was born in the Peloponnese, in southern Greece. He has established himself as one of the country’s most innovative writers, revered and imitated by many. Jane Assimakopoulos is an American-born translator living in Greece. She is currently a translation editor working on a series of books by Philip Roth. She lives in Greece. Stavros Deligiorgis is a University of Iowa professor emeritus in English and Comparative Literature. He is the author of books and articles on literary theory and translation. Stathis N. Kalyvas is Arnold Wolfers Professor of Political Science at Yale. He is the author of, among other books, Modern Greece: What Everyone Needs to Know, The Logic of Violence in Civil War, and The Rise of Christian Democracy in Europe.
First published in 1994 to a storm of controversy, Thanassis Valtinos's probing novel Orthokostá defied standard interpretations of the Greek Civil War. Through the documentary-style testimonies of multiple narrators, among them the previously unheard voices of right-wing collaborationists, Valtinos provides a powerful, nuanced interpretation of events during the later years of Nazi occupation and the early stages of the nation's Civil War. His fictionalized chronicle gives participants, victims, and innocent bystanders equal opportunity to bear witness to such events as the burning of Valtinos's home village, the detention and execution of combatants and civilians in the monastery of Orthokostá, and the revenge killings that ensued.
As a transforming work of literature, this book redefined established methods of fiction; as a work of revisionist history, it changed the way Greece understands its own past. Now, through this masterful translation of Orthokostá, English-language readers have full access to the tremendous vitality of Valtinos's work and to the divisive Civil War experiences that continue to echo in Greek politics and events today.
Thanassis Valtinos was born in the Peloponnese, in southern Greece. He has established himself as one of the country’s most innovative writers, revered and imitated by many. Jane Assimakopoulos is an American-born translator living in Greece. She is currently a translation editor working on a series of books by Philip Roth. She lives in Greece. Stavros Deligiorgis is a University of Iowa professor emeritus in English and Comparative Literature. He is the author of books and articles on literary theory and translation. Stathis N. Kalyvas is Arnold Wolfers Professor of Political Science at Yale. He is the author of, among other books, Modern Greece: What Everyone Needs to Know, The Logic of Violence in Civil War, and The Rise of Christian Democracy in Europe.
Advance Praise
"Vatinos’s book brings us to where history and literature intersect. He offers a glimpse of Greece during which the violence of occupation inflicted pain and anguish on an unsuspecting society. The characters reflect the human drama caused by ideology and war."—André Gerolymatos, author of The Balkan Wars
"Thanassis Valtinos is one of the best writers Greece has produced during the past half century and Orthokostá is one of his best works. It dramatizes with the emotional density of a novel some of the horrors committed by rival combatants during World War II, but it does not shy away from noting the atrocities of Greek communists against their own people as most books about that period by Greek writers tend to do. A searing testament to a cruel time powerfully rendered."—Nicholas Gage author of Eleni
"Valtinos began his brilliant career with a long short story about left-wing guerrillas on the plain of Kynouria (the author's homeland). Three decades later Valtinos launched his Orthokostá, presenting the tragedy of the other end of the Greek civil strife. Written in the local idiom, Orthokostá became a bone of contention between left and right in Greece, a proof that Valtinos can identify with all suffering humanity."—Thanos Veremis, Professor Emeritus of Political History, Athens University
“Valtinos’s novel is the right book to take to your bedside if you want to enjoy one of the very best fictional representations of twentieth-century Greek life and its broader relevance, in an excellent English translation [by Jane Assimakopoulos and Stavros Deligiorgis].”—Edmund Keeley, Princeton University (on Data from the Decade of the Sixties)
"Thanassis Valtinos’s controversial novel Orthokostá, a masterful narrative of several personal testimonies that grapple with the atrocities of the Greek Civil War, is offered for the first time to English-speaking readers thanks to this translation by Jane Assimakopoulos and Stavros Deligiorgis, complemented by Stathis Kalyvas’s enlightening foreword, which contextualizes Orthokostá. Thanks to this new addition to the Margellos World Republic of Letters series, Anglophone readers are exposed to a different literary account of the dark roots of the Greek Civil War.—Vassiliki Rapti, Harvard University
"Thanassis Valtinos is one of the best writers Greece has produced during the past half century and Orthokostá is one of his best works. It dramatizes with the emotional density of a novel some of the horrors committed by rival combatants during World War II, but it does not shy away from noting the atrocities of Greek communists against their own people as most books about that period by Greek writers tend to do. A searing testament to a cruel time powerfully rendered."—Nicholas Gage author of Eleni
"Valtinos began his brilliant career with a long short story about left-wing guerrillas on the plain of Kynouria (the author's homeland). Three decades later Valtinos launched his Orthokostá, presenting the tragedy of the other end of the Greek civil strife. Written in the local idiom, Orthokostá became a bone of contention between left and right in Greece, a proof that Valtinos can identify with all suffering humanity."—Thanos Veremis, Professor Emeritus of Political History, Athens University
“Valtinos’s novel is the right book to take to your bedside if you want to enjoy one of the very best fictional representations of twentieth-century Greek life and its broader relevance, in an excellent English translation [by Jane Assimakopoulos and Stavros Deligiorgis].”—Edmund Keeley, Princeton University (on Data from the Decade of the Sixties)
"Thanassis Valtinos’s controversial novel Orthokostá, a masterful narrative of several personal testimonies that grapple with the atrocities of the Greek Civil War, is offered for the first time to English-speaking readers thanks to this translation by Jane Assimakopoulos and Stavros Deligiorgis, complemented by Stathis Kalyvas’s enlightening foreword, which contextualizes Orthokostá. Thanks to this new addition to the Margellos World Republic of Letters series, Anglophone readers are exposed to a different literary account of the dark roots of the Greek Civil War.—Vassiliki Rapti, Harvard University
Available Editions
| EDITION | Hardcover |
| ISBN | 9780300209990 |
| PRICE | $27.00 (USD) |
