Novel
The Tale of a Town
Το χρονικό μιας πολιτείας
Pandelis Prevelakis · 1938
Synopsis
Rethymno, from the end of Ottoman rule to the twenties, when the town still mingled Christians and Muslims. The narrator, a child of the place, weaves together the history of Crete and his own memories, and tells of the people of the town, their way of being self-sufficient and their dignity in hardship, so that nothing of this world is lost.
Context
The author had published a poem and a one-act play in 1928, then fell silent during his years of study; it was through this book, written in the spring of 1937 and published in 1938, that he established himself as a prose writer. He revised the edition, which took its definitive form in 1945. The narrative covers the quarter-century from 1898 to 1924 and ends with the population exchange, which swept away the Muslim Cretans. There is no French translation; the English one, The Tale of a Town, appeared in 1976.
Who it is for
A book without plot and without hero, which can be read in Greek or in English, no French translation having rendered it. It is read in pieces, like a collection of stories.
Prizes and reception
It is its author's most widely read book, and the Greek model of the town chronicle: neither novel nor history, but the memory of a small town kept by a single man.