Eurydice Street: A Place in Athens [Paperback]

Sofka Zinovieff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2005

Sofka Zinovieff had fallen in love with Greece as a student, but little suspected that years later she would, return for good with an expatriate Greek husband and two young daughters. This book is a wonderfully fresh, funny, and inquiring account of her first year as an Athenian. The whole family have to come to grips with their new life and identities—the children start school and tackle a new language, and Sofka's husband, Vassilis, comes home after half a lifetime away. Meanwhile, Sofka resolves to get to know her new city and become a Greek citizen, which turns out to be a process of Byzantine complexity. As the months go by, Sofka's discovers how memories of Athens' past haunt its present in its music, poetry, and history. She also learns about the difficult art of catching a taxi, the importance of smoking, the unimportance of time-keeping, and how to get your Christmas piglet cooked at the baker's.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"... a modest and a magnificently well-judged book, which anyone thinking of an Athenian trip ought to read." -- The Times Literary Supplement

"... a thoroughly engaging memoir." -- The Spectator

"A beguiling blend of autobiography and travel swirled into a portrait of a city and a meditation on Greekness." -- Daily Telegraph

“Amiable account of being a stranger in a strange land.” -- The New York Times Book Review

“More than travel writing, this is a story of finding home.” -- Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

Sofka Zinovieff trained as an anthropologist and has worked as a journalist. She lives in Athens. This is her first book.

Product Details

• Paperback: 276 pages
• Publisher: Granta UK (May 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1862077509
• ISBN-13: 978-1862077508
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 4.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #307,319 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #72 in Books > Travel > Europe > Greece

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Moving to Athens, February 15, 2005

By 

Alekos (Cancun, Quintana Roo Mexico) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eurydice Street (Hardcover)

This charming book was written by a British lady who goes to live in Athens with her Greek-born husband and pre-adolescent daughters. The fact that she is an anthropologist gives her analysis of the city and the Greeks a depth and completeness they would not otherwise have. She loves the Greeks and their ways of living and their values, but she is not therefore blinded to the way they sometimes take moral shortcuts and fail to live up to who and what they claim to be. Her overriding goal is to fit in and be accepted as a Greek wife and mother and citizen. She is delighted when her daughters rapidly learn the language. She relishes her new Greek friendships. She is saddened by the fast pace of urbanization and bemoans the way it combines all the country's worst traits: corruption, money-madness, rejection of traditional values. She knows Greeks have no monopoly on these traits but she hates to see them in a country she loves so thoroughly. The author has quite a sound sense of history and is keenly aware of all the historical and ethnic elements that make up modern Greece. Highly recommended.

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written account of daily life in today's Athens, November 6, 2004

By 

Lisane - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Eurydice Street (Hardcover)

In my search for books that would give me a sense of what it's like to live in contemporary Greece, I found Eurydice Street, a book by an anthropologist who is married to a former expatriate Greek. The author and her husband decided in 2001 to move to Greece to live, and raise their two young daughters as Greeks. They find a house in Athens on Eurydice Street, and begin their first year living in Athens as Greek citizens. This book is the story of that year. I have read several books about modern Greece, but Eurydice Street is one of only two (the other being Dinner with Persephone) that I consider outstanding. By "outstanding", I mean that not only is the book well written, but it goes beneath the surface to convey not just customs, practices and descriptions of landscape, but the psychological and feeling aspects of life in the Greek culture. I came away feeling that I understand something about the way Greek people experience life.

Ms. Zinovieff writes extremely well, and she brings her anthropologist's eye for cultural norms and folkways to her account. The book takes us through the year, starting in the dead heat of August, and each chapter focuses on a particular aspect of Greek culture -- the festival of Panaigia, Oxi Day, November 17, the Greek way of celebrating Christmas, which is to celebrate the New Year instead, and of course, Easter. Even though the chapters each focus on a particular event in Greek life, they flow naturally because the author experiences these events as part of her family's daily life.

By the time you've finished the book, you feel that if you went to Greece to live for a period of time, you would be going to a familiar place that you understand. This is a wonderful book, and I recommend it highly.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Informed, Balanced and Entertaining., August 27, 2006

By 

Benjamin Rossen "Benjamin" (Netherlands) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Eurydice Street: A Place in Athens (Paperback)

Greece is a country of extremes and exaggerated characters. So, it is not surprising that many non-Greek writers describing their experience of Greece and the Greek people have little difficulty telling picturesque anecdotes. Gerald Durrell's books and essays amuse the reader, thought Durrell's writing has a tendency to mock the Greeks from a position of presumed British cultural superiority; and in somewhat the same tradition we have John Mole's account (It's All Greek to Me). Lawrence Durrell (Prospero's Cell) just does not get it quite right; two and a half years and layers of literary pretensions are, respectively, too little and too much to do Corfu justice. Henry Miller (The Colossus of Maroussi) was overwhelmed by his experience, and the gushing metaphorical excess of his account tells us more about his emotional state then it does about the country. Greece seems to draw this kind of awe-struck reaction from Anglo-American travelers.

It is a refreshing change to encounter this book by Sofka Zinovieff who is enough of a foreigner to see things with a fresh eye, and yet enough of an insider to really understand what she sees. Her academic training enables her to penetrate the appearances of things, and to draw out the truths behind the Greeks' popular myths and definitions of themselves. To this she brings a wealth of anthropological, historical, sociological and political insight without converting this lovely light hearted and entertaining book into a studious tome. It is a wonderful account and strongly recommended.