Richard Pine

Vera Konidari

The condition of Greece, ever since its establishment as a sovereign state in 1830, has been the subject of intense international debate, centring on its pivotal role in the Balkans. This has been aggravated by Greece’s economic collapse in 2010 and by the ongoing refugee crisis, by environmental disasters, terrorism and the Macedonian question. This book’s analysis and assessment of Greek social, cultural and political life is trenchant, up-front and passionate, based on the author’s belief that one cannot love Greece without also mourning the fault-lines in bureaucracy and the dynastic politics which have dominated it since its inception. This book features a selection of the author’s “Letters from Greece” (from The Irish Times) and his “Eye of the Xenos”, from the Greek newspaper Kathimerini, in its entirety, in both English and a Greek translation, including columns which Kathimerini refused to print due to the nature of their political commentary.

The Eye of the Xenos, Letters about Greece (Durrell Studies 3)

730 million people—almost 10% of the world’s population—inhabit islands. One quarter of the states represented at the United Nations are islands. Islands constitute almost twenty percent of the total land area of Greece, and exhibit more significant aspects of biodiversity than other global contexts. They are both occasions of triumph and occurrences of catastrophe. Islands are both open and enclosed communities, points of arrival and departure. Islands exert a fascination for the visitor and generate, in the islander, both positive and negative mindsets. The romantic fallacies about self-sufficiency and insularity of islands are constantly challenged. This collection of essays by scholars from some of the world’s most compelling islands—Jersey, Ireland, Tasmania, Corfu, Ereikousa, Prince Edward Island, Malta—explores the psychology of islands, islanders and their visitors, the literatures they stimulate, and the scientific, ethical and biogeographical issues they present in an increasingly globalised world. Corfu, the home of Lawrence and Gerald Durrell in the 1930s, and host to literary and scientific enquiry, is the place where this collection was conceived, and occupies a central place in its discussions.

Psychology, Literature and Biodiversity

Islands of the Mind

The crossing of borders and frontiers between political states and between languages and cultures continues to inhibit and bedevil the freedom of movement of both ideas and people. This book addresses the issues arising from problems of translation and communication, the understanding of identity in hyphenated cultures, the relationship between landscape and character, and the multiplex topic of gender transition. Literature as a key to identity in borderland situations is explored here, together with analyses of semiotics, narratives of madness and abjection. The volume also examines the contemporary refugee crisis through first-hand “Personal Witness” accounts of migration, and political, ethnic and religious divisions in Kosovo, Greece, Portugal and North America. Another section, gathering together historical and current “Poetry of Exile”, offers poets’ perspectives on identity and tradition in the context of loss, alienation, fear and displacement.

Vera Konidari

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