While many of the heroes of Greek literature of the pre and
post-war era are caught up in the guiding national narrative and
its myths, Dimitri is a person with more than one home. His story
is a story of the Greek diaspora, one of curiosity, awakening,
humorous observation, and the broadening of horizons. The second
volume in Miltiades Hatzopoulos' trilogy has Dimitri arriving in
Paris in 1956, a stranger in a foreign land, bewildered and
bemused, but soon swept up in the reality of a country he has so
far learned about only through his reading of French medieval
literature. A sophisticated French family welcome him into their
confusingly shabby upper-class home, where he lodges together with
a colourful cast of characters on the sixth floor. Now permanently
exiled from Cyprus, Dimitri is committed to his adoptive country.
Grateful for the opportunities that the French Republic has so
generously bestowed upon him, he becomes a French citizen and
volunteers for military service just as the political unrest of the
60s hits the streets of Paris. In counterpoint to his own inner
turmoil, the French colonial war in Algeria, the Arab-Israeli War
and the military coup in Greece all take place while he is in
France, and meanwhile the tragedy of Cyprus continues to unfold.
Dimitri's humorous observation of life in the army is one of the
many glories of this book, along with the fine descriptions of
character, Paris and the provinces, the niceties of French society,
the complexity of personal relations, and a vivid introduction to
the politics of the time from a first-hand perspective.
Historically enlightening and vivid, the book takes us along
Dimitri's own personal journey, which is defined and dictated by
the events going on around him, as he grapples with a world that
sweeps him along, amused, confused and enchanted.
General
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