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From a master of modernist literature, Thanassis Valtinos, this volume collects two groundbreaking novellas that altered the trajectory of Greek fiction, together with two autobiographical short stories. Valtinos, in these early works, charts the divergent fates of his native Peloponnesian villagers through odysseys of departure and historical upheaval.

Set in the early twentieth century, The Book of Andreas Kordopatis, Part 1: America records the repeated attempts of the narrator to emigrate to the U.S. Wrought from a firsthand account, it offers a revelatory view of the struggles of the undocumented in that era. The Descent of the Nine is a Greek Civil War drama that details the agonizing attrition of nine surviving Communist rebels left to fend for themselves in government-controlled territory. In “Addiction to Nicotine” the onset of adolescence interfuses with the last stages of the leftist grip on the countryside. “Aistrátigos” closes the collection with a keenly sketched portrait of a World War II veteran, whose privation— in war and affection—has led to an almost mystical reclusiveness.

In an expert, compelling translation, these tales resound with diverse and intimate voices from the great chorus of the work of Thanassis Valtinos.

Praise for Thanassis Valtinos: Early Works

No one matches Thanassis Valtinos’s ability to capture Greece’s Twentieth-Century experience in all its complexity and breadth—and this collection brings together wonderful translations of some of his best works. —Stathis Kalyvas, Oxford University

Jane Assimakopoulos and Stavros Deligiorgis’s translations rise deftly to the many challenges presented by these four important works by Thanassis Valtinos, with their range of tones, registers, and narrative styles. The writing is, like Valtinos’s, spare and strong, with rare lyrical flashes, and a force and forward momentum that keep you turning the pages until the very end. —Karen Emmerich, Princeton University

Traces of the storyteller cling to the story the way the handprints of the potter cling to the clay vessel, Walter Benjamin once observed. In Valtinos’ stories, a master prose strategist manipulates form, texture, and momentum into a voice that bears witness to the deepest tracks of a turbulent Greek experience. Recognizing and confronting this image in the present is a heart-rending and urgent experience. —Vangelis Calotychos, Brown University

Thanassis Valtinos’s prose is distinguished by an ongoing dialogue with key periods of twentieth-century Greek history. It is driven by the desire to give voice to anonymity and therefore to that which history forgets, marginalizes, or leaves out. These long-awaited translations of his early works capture Valtinos’s unique story-telling style and effectively convey the orality of his heroes. Anthony Dracopoulos, University of Sydney

Valtinos’s fiction questions the solidity of the past by bringing together documentation and self- doubt, an anxiety about history, and a preoccupation with language and form. This collection of his early works offers insights into the artistry of one of Greece’s most influential writers. —Dimitris Tziovas, University of Birmingham

Drawing on work from three decades of Thanassis Valtinos’s literary output, his translators have compiled a volume entitled Thanassis Valtinos: Early Works . . . making available to an international audience the works by this eminent post-war, post-Modernist Greek author that foreground his literary motifs and mark the beginnings of his definitive influence on Modern Greek fiction.The translators, well-practiced in Valtinos’s style of writing, render his Spartan language in correspondingly austere speech, preserving at the same time his intensely vivid but low-key lyricism. —Lamprini Koyzeli, Vima, Athens

Thanassis Valtinos was born in 1932 in Kastri, Kynourias, in the Peloponnese. He has written novels, novellas, short stories, and film scripts and translated ancient Greek tragedies for the theater. His work has been translated into many languages and has earned him numerous awards, including Best Screenplay (Cannes Film Festival 1984), the Greek State Prize for Best Novel (1990), the International Cavafy Prize (2002), the Petros Haris Prize, conferred by the Academy of Athens for Lifetime Achievement (2002), the Gold Cross of Honor of the President of the Greek Democracy (2003), and the Greek State Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2012).