[{"id":124372,"title":"The Boundless Garden","subtitle":"Selected Short Stories","description":"Alexandros Papadiamandis (1851-1911) lived in the midst of an uncertain age of transition for modern Greece. It was a period of post-Enlightenment turmoil that followed closely on the heels of Greece's War of Independence, when the traditional old ways were being undermined and were fast disappearing under the pressure of the indiscriminate adoption of western mores and ideas. His reflections on and observations of some of the most complex facets of Greek life in both his native island of Skiathos and in urban Athens during this time define the modern Greek experience in a way unattained by any of his now forgotten contemporaries. His loving attachment to the old traditional ways have marked him out for some as conservative, even reactionary, but it was an attachment tempered with an innate and deep understanding of how the past breathes life into the present, an understanding which is as relevant in our times as it was in his.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe stories presented in this selection encompass the main and universal themes that best exemplify his work. In them he records and recreates that modern Greek experience as it was lived in its many perspectives - displacement, emigration, home-coming, estrangement, exile, attempts to reclaim lost innocence, visions of Paradise, the daily struggle for survival - and explores the souls of men and women as they succumbed to or struggled against the power of evil and dealt with life's ambiguities. Within these themes Papadiamandis also embraced the mythic past as it survived through people's belief in supernatural wonders and which animated the countryside with haunted ruins, nymphs and fairies and the sea with mermaids and Tritons. His was an authentic expression of a reality that he saw as a seamless whole in which man, whether or not he is conscious of it, spirits and the natural world all participate in a living liturgical now, ever moving towards their eternal source.","image":"http://www.biblionet.gr/images/covers/b126983.jpg","isbn":"978-960-7120-23-6","isbn13":"978-960-7120-23-6","ismn":null,"issn":null,"series":null,"pages":335,"publication_year":2007,"publication_place":"Λίμνη Ευβοίας","price":"22.0","price_updated_at":"2008-01-14","cover_type":"Μαλακό εξώφυλλο","availability":"Κυκλοφορεί","format":"Βιβλίο","original_language":null,"original_title":null,"publisher_id":1194,"extra":null,"biblionet_id":126983,"url":"https://bibliography.gr/books/the-boundless-garden.json"},{"id":178470,"title":"The Murderess","subtitle":"A Social Tale","description":"The \"Murderess\" has been regarded as Alexandros Papadiamandis’s finest work. Set on his native island of Skiathos it tells the story of Hadoula, a widow with grown-up children, who has convinced herself that it is better little girls should leave this life when young so that they and their parents should not suffer the trials that inevitably would be inflicted on them by an inequitable society. In the throes of this misguided compassion she first murders her own granddaughter and afterwards finds herself set on a course she is unable to stop despite the promptings of her conscience and her awareness of the consequences.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePapadiamandis charts this course and the events in her life that preceded it, and against a background of the island’s verdant and untrodden places and the living presence of the Church he explores the particular quality evil has of disguising itself as good, but without ever passing judgement on the murderess herself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLong considered one of Greece's most important writers, Papadiamandis's reflections on and observations of modern Greek life define the Greek experience in a way unmatched by any of his contemporaries.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis new translation of \"The Murderess\" has been undertaken and published to mark the centenary of Papadiamandis's death.","image":"http://www.biblionet.gr/images/covers/b181595.jpg","isbn":"978-960-7120-28-1","isbn13":"978-960-7120-28-1","ismn":null,"issn":null,"series":{"id":9761,"name":"Romiosyni Series","books_count":5,"tsearch_vector":"'romiosyni' 'series'","created_at":"2017-04-13T02:21:03.425+03:00","updated_at":"2017-04-13T02:21:03.425+03:00"},"pages":290,"publication_year":2011,"publication_place":"Λίμνη Ευβοίας","price":"10.0","price_updated_at":"2012-07-23","cover_type":"Μαλακό εξώφυλλο","availability":"Κυκλοφορεί - Εκκρεμής εγγραφή","format":"Βιβλίο","original_language":null,"original_title":"Η φόνισσα","publisher_id":1194,"extra":null,"biblionet_id":181595,"url":"https://bibliography.gr/books/the-murderess.json"}]