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Lord Byron and philhellenism, in poetry

Event at Odeon of Herodes Atticus features readings by Lina Nikolakopoulou, Victoria Hislop and Alicia Stallings, music by Tom Smail

‘The Reception of Lord Byron at Missolonghi, 1861,’ is captured by Theodoros Vryzakis (1814/1819-1878). The painting is on display at the National Gallery in Athens.

 

The city’s cannons sounded 37 times in Messolonghi on the day that Lord Byron breathed his last, one for each year of his short life. The news of his death was reported in the Greek Chronicles newspaper, with the announcement being among a selection of texts and poems that acclaimed Greek poet and songwriter Lina Nikolakopoulou will be reading at a concert at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus on Thursday, organized by the Society for Hellenism and Philhellenism and the Philhellenism Museum in Athens to mark the 200th anniversary of the death of the romantic British poet.

“The announcement in the Messolonghi newspaper captures the shockwaves caused by his death. It is very moving that despite the dire situation in the city at the time, the custom of firing the cannons was observed. This is something we wanted to shine a spotlight on because while we often revisit his poems and actions, it is also nice to refresh our memories about how the Greeks honored him,” says Nikolakopoulou.

The Greek songwriter, who is also the artistic director of the performance, will be sharing the stage with British author Victoria Hislop and poet and Oxford University professor Alicia Stallings to recite poems by Lord Byron and other Greek and philhellene poets, such as Alexander Pushkin, Vittorio Sereni, Kostis Palamas and others. The recital will be accompanied with music by another British artist, composer Tom Smail.

Kathimerini reached out to the Britons taking part in this interesting performance and asked them to comment on the show and Byron. What stands out is how differently he has become imprinted on the collective conscience in the two countries.

“We grew up from our school days with Lord Byron. He’s one of our great poets, he’s very much on the curriculum,” says Hislop.

“In Greece I think he is known foremost as a hero who drew attention to the country’s needs in the liberation from the Ottomans. But in Britain the two other aspects of his reputation live on too – he was well known as an infamous seducer, as well as being known as a great poet. It’s almost the first thing that comes up when you look online. He was a very rounded but also very complex human being – like a superman with flaws. The most famous quote about him was that he was ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know,’” she adds, quoting a phrase used by Lady Caroline Lamb (1785-1828) to describe her lover Lord Byron.

‘Byron loved Greece, he absolutely adored it, and I think that’s what philhellenism is, it’s a love of somewhere that’s not necessarily rational’

“Ι think we don’t appreciate how famous he was. I mean, he was rock star level famous. He writes that ‘I awoke one day to find myself famous.’ I think ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ sold out 10,000 copies almost immediately in its first run. A book of poems now, if it sold 10,000 copies, would be the biggest selling poem in a decade. Basically everyone who could read, everyone who was literate, got a copy of this book,” says Stallings.
“Obviously he also invented the  sexy author photograph – with the open shirt, the poet’s blouse – on book covers,” she adds. “Women and men found him sexy, I think by our standards, he’s certainly bisexual, and he influences this idea of the romantic hero.”

Hislop agrees on his incredible sex appeal and popularity. “Women just fell at his feet, you know, fainted. He was like a pop star, like Harry Styles. When he arrived in Messolonghi for the first time, people were just swarming, you know, in this big crowd to try and see this person, and he obviously did have great charisma.”

In Greece, however, what he is most remembered for is his support for the Greek people and their struggle for liberation.

“He’s clearly wrestling with some of the issues of the time, some of them very similar to things we might say today. Take Palestine, for example, where you have people saying: ‘Are the Palestinians ready to govern themselves? I don’t think they are.’ Byron says the same kind of thing, that any people under occupation can’t be judged for what they would do if they were free,” says Stallings.

She also notes that Byron was the only British romantic poet who did not try to “make the Greeks be the ancient Greeks. He sees them for who they are.”

Byron’s life, words and decisions have elevated him to the status of the ideal philhellene in Greece. To what degree, however, has he influenced modern-day philhellenism?

“This very romantic image of classical Greece that he paints, that incorporates the place, the beauty, the landscape, as well as Greek heroism, classical Greek heroism, with battles and gods, those are the key ingredients that to some extent do still define many people’s idea of what Greece is, and that relationship between Britain and Greece is still, you know, to some extent it is sort of romantic with a capital R,” says Hislop. “He lived in a period where literature could still have such a huge influence on your emotional idea of what a place was, and Byron loved Greece, he absolutely adored it, and I think that’s what philhellenism is, it’s a love of somewhere that’s not necessarily rational.”

“That feeling, that feeling of going somewhere ancient and modern at the same time and feeling free and feeling at home and feeling happy, I think is what philhellenes feel, which is why there’s such a special place for Byron in our hearts,” says Smail.

For Stallings, “a modern philhellene would not put their life on the line. You have to give him credit for doing that.” She also believes that Lord Byron “would enjoy getting to know contemporary Greece in all of its complexity.”

“I expect him to, you know, join protests in the streets in Syntagma. Sure, yeah. He could write some protest slogans.”

“I think he’d probably be more shocked by what’s happened in the country of his birth than Greece,” says Hislop, adding that he would probably be a social media user. “In some ways, he was an early influencer,” she says, adding, “I think he’d be quite furious that the Parthenon Sculptures were still in the British Museum.”

Admission to the event is free of charge, by invitation via info@eefshp.org.

BY XENIA GEORGIADOU

Kathimerini

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You! Interview


By Tasmina Perry For You Magazine

In the library of London’s Hellenic Centre, Victoria Hislop is telling me how filming Dancing with the Stars – the Greek version of Strictly Come Dancing – made her cry. ‘It was an amazing experience, but hardcore,’ says the bestselling author, whose ten books have sold more than ten million copies worldwide, all but one set in Greece.

‘I used to lie in the bath for hours every day, soaking in German spa salts after all the practice. I’d phone Ian every night, sometimes sobbing, saying, “I can’t go on”, and he would say, “But you said that last week and you were fine, and you are going to be great again.”’

‘Ian’ is Ian Hislop, editor of the satirical magazine Private Eye and a long-term team captain on Have I Got News For You. As Victoria’s husband of 36 years, he knows better than anyone that his wife was never going to let the rigours of a dance show get her down. It tells you everything about her tenacity: she was diagnosed with breast cancer between lockdowns, needing a lumpectomy and radiotherapy to treat it. ‘When the call came to do the show in early 2021, I was still on the drugs,’ she says. ‘I’d also just lost my mum, so it wasn’t the ideal time for it. In the end I thought, sometimes you’ve got to jump. You know it’s deep water, but you also know you can swim.’…

Such is her literary celebrity in Greece, she is the only international author to have appeared on Dancing with the Stars there. And lan was right, she was great, outlasting contestants 30 years younger than her. In the UK she’s been inducted into the Bestseller Awards Hall of Fame (the book version of Hollywood’s Walk of Fame), where she sits alongside Lee Child and lan Rankin. The panel family history’ by The Mail on Sunday. She bestowed a Platinum Award on The Island, too. She has also just been appointed among the Royal Society of Literature (RSL) fellows, making her one of the few authors to pull off huge sales with highbrow acclaim. Her debut novel The Island, published in 2005, was made into an epic 26-part series for Greek TV. Even lan had a cameo part in it as the father of the heroine. The Figurine, her latest novel, was hailed as a ‘tightly wrought excavation of  family history” by the Mail on Sunday. She now speaks fluent Greek, too.

“That came from having to speak throug a translator in interviews,’ she explains. ‘I felt such a dummy, so back in London I found the Hellenic Centre and said I want a one-to-one teacher three times a week. I just stuck at it and ended up coming for a few years.’ Hislop uses the word ‘nerdy’ a lot, but it’s modest shorthand for possessing a strong work ethic, something she’s had since childhood, growing up in Tonbridge in Kent. Back then she wanted to impress her formidable teachers at school, but inspiration and learning came from another source: her mum’s new boyfriend. ‘By the time I was 13, my parents had separated and my mum was in a relationship with a Frenchman called Michel who I adored and learned such a lot from. I worked in his restaurant on Saturday nights, we played tennis every weekend and I spoke French to him all the time. That’s how I became fluent in French. so of course I was top of the class in French,’ she says with a grin. She studied English at Oxford where she met Ian, then worked at publishers Sidgwick Jackson. As the salary barely covered her ren&t, she took a Saturday job at Selfridges staffing the cheese and nut counters. She would finish, rush for the train to Kent, shift at Michel’s and return the next day to start back at Sidgwick. ‘They were good days,’ she says. ‘Kenneth Williams used to come into Selfridges every Saturday, and I lived above a bakery that smelt of pastries. Although there did come a point when I thought, “I don’t want to worry about money any more”, so I moved into advertising. By 28 I had a BMW and my own parking space in London. You should see our wedding photos: on my side there were a lot of corporate shoulder pads.’ The 20-something who took three jobs to balance the books became the 30-something mum who went back to work just weeks after the birth of her daughter Emily. ‘They were the Nicola Horlick “superwoman” days,’ she reminds me. ‘I expressed my milk in the loo, not even questioning if it was right or wrong, but all I knew was that I was miserable. Finally, I spoke up and my employers gave me freelance copywriting work. Then there was the trip to Crete that changed everything.’ In true Hislop style she turned a setback into an opportunity on that group holiday in 2001. ‘We were staying in very basic apartments so we planned lots of excursions. Ian was usually the driver of them, but I’d spotted the former leper colony Spinalonga. I wasn’t confident about suggesting it – it’s not exactly a waterpark – but the minute we got there I was entranced and knew I had to write about it and the people who once lived there.’

The result: her novel The Island was a hit, setting the tone for her intelligent blend of her history, drama and family secrets. Her books 13, my don’t shy away from the darker periods of was in Greek history, which meant she kept her work

Michel away from one house guest: like many people, we took in someone from Syria during the refugee crisis. He asked to read one of my novels, but I thought, ‘They are all about civil war except for one, which is about leprosy.” I gave him something else to read.’

Unlike many high achievers, Hislop says there’s been no big strategy behind her & brilliant career. ‘You can have objectives and follow ideas that you feel sustained by it, but I’m not sure you can plan. And the [Strictly] experience shows that, whatever age you are, you can do it. Not everything is easy – it can be tough _ but it’s no reason not to do it.’

She calls herself a poster girl for Greece – the previous week she was demonstrating for the Elgin Marbles to be returned – but Hislop is an inspiration for a blooming midlife. She became a bestselling novelist in her 40s, mastered Greek in her 50s and is rewriting the 60-something rule book: author, reality TV star, activist and ambassador for leprosy charity Lepra. She looks great, too -in a chambray shirt dress and metallic wedges, Hislop could be 15 years younger than 65. Sh 30-something is lithe and strong from boxing, pilates and skipping. Her skin glows from Greek sunshine and a Mediterranean diet.

‘You know, I tell young people, “You are not  going to have one job”,’ she says, pointing out that she didn’t want to write fiction until she was about 40. ‘When we’re young, we make compromises. The fun jobs tend to pay less, so we pick careers to pay the mortgage. But latterly I’ve followed the ones I enjoy. I think, which can lead to later-life success, a sweet spot between reward and professional pleasure.’ Life is certainly sweet for Hislop, with family homes in Crete, Kent and Chelsea, which has led to some embarrassing celebrity mix-ups.

‘Once I saw someone near our house and rushed over to say “Hi”, only to realise it was Spencer Matthews from Made in Chelsea, and I only knew him from the telly!’

She writes either at the London Library or at the Hislops’ Cretan home near Agios Nikolaos, where she spends much of the year – and where she spent lockdown.

‘I go to Greece for work commitments usually once a month and then stay on to write.’

Does that mean life with Ian can feel like a long-distance relationship? She shrugs it off with the ease of the happily married.

‘He comes out as often as he can. During Dancing with the Stars, you’d see him in the audience most weeks.’

There are usually three years between books, giving her time to travel, meet people and chase the detail that gives her books such evocative authenticity. She takes her research seriously, even going on a dig while working on her latest book The Figurine, getting up at 5am with the other archaeologists. When she needs something she just asks, which puts all sorts of interesting people, from the director of the Acropolis Museum to the chair of Sotheby’s, into her orbit.

‘Im relatively timid, but I’ll find the top person, write a polite letter to ask for help and I’ve never been turned down,’ she says, adding that many such people stay in her life. ‘When someone gives you their time and shares their stories, it creates an emotional connection. I hate just saying, “Thanks and goodbye”.’ Clearly it’s reciprocal – the Sotheby’s chair has just sent her a birthday card. It’s no surprise, when Hislop is so likeable: easy company, warm, down to earth and fun. Three hours slip by as we talk about her love of Greece and her favourite islands, including Crete, Tinos and Sifnos: two Cycladic islands she describes as ‘unspoilt and beautiful’. She is also a passionate chef. ‘Cooking is the only thing I think I’m really good at,’ she tells me, demonstrating the impressive knife skills she learnt in Michel’s restaurant.

We relocate to a coffee shop in the balmy streets of Marylebone, where we meet one of her writer friends, who also has a place in Crete. Plans for dinner are to be put on an author WhatsApp group – it’s a fleeting insight into her life in Agios Nikaloas – and it seems idyllic.

‘It is,’ she admits. ‘Although I do go to Crete to work – I wrote almost all of The Figurine there. People would come up to me and say, ‘Are you having a lovely holiday?’ and I’d think, ”Actually, I’m stressed trying to get my book finished”, because it was post Strictly, post cancer treatment – and during those things I hadn’t been able to concentrate on anything else. But nothing beats my desk in Crete with a view of the sea. My head, my imagination is just stimulated by Greece.’

I bring up the thorny issue of cultural appropriation, and she looks thoughtful. ‘When the American Dirt backlash happened [author Jeanine Cummins was criticised for writing a book from the perspective of a Mexican immigrant] I thought, ‘This is exactly what I’m doing, putting myself in the shoes of a Greek character’. But then I was made an honorary Greek citizen and I’ve never had to face that sort of criticism.”

Next year she can collect her pension but, with her work ethic and thirst for knowledge, she has no plans to retire. She’s already working on her 11th book but keeps the subject under wraps. ‘I don’t even tell Ian,’ she confides. ‘It’s my golden rule not to discuss it because I think if I do, and it sounds stupid or wrong, it may put me off. Although I do get Ian to look at it when it’s finished, and he always has something interesting to say.’

After this book she wants to start writing a collection of short stories and would love to work on a British TV adaptation of her books, having had so much fun as ‘executive producer/control freak’ on the Greek one. As for more reality TV, she quite fancies the Great British Sewing Bee, telling me about her lifelong love affair with sewing. Not only does it relax her, she seems rather good at it, recalling what she’s made over the years: Austrian blinds, bridesmaid dresses, even the outfit for her Oxford interview. Will we see lan on the British Strictly? She laughs, shaking her head. ‘He’s not interested. A little-known fact about lan is that he is an excellent ice-skater but not even Dancing on Ice can tempt him.’

Soon she will set off for another month in Greece, where days will be spent writing, taking morning swims in the Aegean and having evening drinks with loved ones in the whitewashed harbour of Agios. But first for the 60-something living her best life is a trip to Glastonbury with a friend. Her son Will – an actor who had roles in One Day and Baby Reindeer – is going, too. ‘He’s warned me I can’t expect to hang out with him. I said, ‘Don’t expect to hang out with us, either!’

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A Grecian Earn: The Figurine launches into number one

Victoria Hislop’s The Figurine has become the UK Official UK Top 50 number one in its mass-market fiction paperback launch week, just edging out Claire Douglas’ The Wrong Sister (Penguin), which had held the pole position for two out of the previous three weeks.
(from The Bookseller)

 

Victoria Hislop’s The Figurine has become the UK Official UK Top 50 number one in its mass-market fiction paperback launch week, just edging out Claire Douglas’ The Wrong Sister (Penguin), which had earned two out of the previous three pole positions.

The Figurine – Hislop’s eighth book set in Greece – shifted 13,919 units through Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market (TCM) in its release week, edging out Douglas’ previous chart-topper by just 348 copies. This is the first time publisher Headline has claimed an overall number one in three years, since Hislop last performed the feat with One August Night in July 2021. Hislop, recently appointed a Royal Society of Literature fellow, has now claimed her 17th Top 50 number one and her 22nd in Mass Market Fiction.

Hislop leads a chart that has Freida McFadden, Colleen Hoover and Sarah J Maas all notching three places in the Top 50. McFadden and Hoover are surging: the former with three books in the top 14, all of which moved up week-on-week; the latter’s trio are all in the top 10, two of which are versions of It Ends With Us (Simon & Schuster), ahead of the Blake Lively-starring adaptation launching in UK cinemas this Friday (9th August).

Helped by a marketing and publicity push into Waterstones and independent bookshops in particular, historical fiction legend Barbara Erskine has scored her first number one since accurate records began, with The Story Spinner (HarperCollins) selling 3,418 copies to easily top Original Fiction. That 3,418 unit-sale is a hardback launch-week record for Erskine in the TCM era and exceeds the first seven-day total for her last outing, 2021’s The Dream Weavers (HarperCollins) by some 28%. This should mean a happy birthday for the author, who turns 80 this week (10th August).

The biggest hardback launch of the week was foodie influencer turned bestselling author Jane Dunn’s latest, Jane’s Patisserie Easy Favourites (Ebury Spotlight), moving just over 9,400 copies to stop Kay and Kate Allinson’s Pinch of Nom Air Fryer’s (Bluebird) six-week run at the top of the Hardback Non-Fiction (HBNF) chart. All four of Dunn’s books have now notched up HBNF pole positions, though Jane’s Patisserie Easy Favourites’ first-week sales are some 30% down on the launch of Jane’s Patisserie Everyday (Ebury Spotlight) at this time in 2023. Cookery authors have dominated HBNF in general, though, with 26 number ones in the first 31 weeks of 2024.

A changing at the guard in Paperback Non-Fiction, though to a familiar face as Rory Stewart’s Politics on the Edge (Vintage, 5,528 copies) returned to the summit for an eighth time in nine weeks, after it was unseated in the last chart by Miriam Margolyes’ Oh Miriam! (John Murray).

A light publication week in the kids’ sector saw little change in the Children’s charts as Katie Kirby’s The Majorly Awkward BFF Dramas of Lottie Brooks (Puffin) retained its overall Children’s and Children’s and Young Adult Fiction crowns for a third week on the trot, while Tom Fletcher, Dougie Poynter and illustrator Garry Parsons’ The Dinosaur That Pooped a Superhero (Puffin) made it two in a row atop Children’s Preschool.

Overall, £29.4m was sold through the TCM last week, representing an 8% tumble on both the previous seven days and the same period in 2023, the market perhaps affected by the relatively good weather across the UK, a packed Olympics schedule and, distressingly, the political violence that has hit a number of city centres.

 

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Victoria Hislop among new Royal Society of Literature fellows

Mick Herron, Victoria Hislop, Hassan Abdulrazzak and Elizabeth Day were among the 42 new Royal Society of Literature (RSL) fellows whose appointment was announced last night at an event held at the Garden Museum.

Victoria used Lord Byron’s pen to sign when being inducted as a fellow, of Royal Society of Literature

When being inducted as a fellow, Victoria used Lord Byron’s pen to sign…

Among them were 13 new honorary fellows, including SuAndi, who is also this year’s Benson Medallist, and Sanchita Basu De Sarkar, owner of the Children’s Bookshop in Muswell Hill. These are individuals who have made a significant contribution to the advancement of literature in the UK, or who have rendered special service to the RSL.

In 2024 the RSL will be launching its new fellowship election process, and members of the public will be invited to recommend writers for fellowship. Speaking at the event, RSL chair Daljit Nagra also addressed “reporting recently that the RSL was changing too much, that the eligibility of fellows is changing”, clarifying that “it is not”.

Also speaking at the event, Bernardine Evaristo, president of the RSL, talked about the importance of reading — and the impact that losing libraries can have for children. She referenced recently commissioned research by Queen Camilla, who is the patron of the RSL, which looked at reading and well-being from a neuroscience perspective. “Key findings revealed that just five minutes of reading can reduce stress by nearly 20%, improve concentration and focus by as much as 11%, and that reading earlier in the day can help readers feel more connected to others, and feel ready to tackle challenges.”

Environment, security and bread

(Victoria Hislop for Ekathimerini)

When I went to vote in my local village in Crete, a mother had brought her children with her. It was a sizzlingly hot morning, and I know they would much rather have been in the shady playground down the road. But their presence felt very right. Kids tend to copy their parents and these siblings will grow up with the idea that voting is important, and knowing that it matters to queue up and take part in a democratic process. They were too young to vote themselves, but it focused me on whose future I was voting for. Because voting is always about the future and I was essentially voting for the world they are growing up in.

In the previous European elections five years ago (the last one that Brits could participate in), we all had different things on our minds. During that period, climate change was getting the focus it deserves and Greta Thunberg was perhaps at her height. Environmental issues are about tomorrow (we can all tell ourselves that temperatures in June were high even when we were small) but it looks this time as if electorates in many countries have focused less on the global warming catastrophe arriving tomorrow, and more on what they are going to pay for their bread today. Of course, I have no idea what the parents of those children in Kalo Horio voted, but I suspect that their minds were more on the cost of their supermarket bill than whether or not there should be a wind farm in the area.

More alarming than the fall in the “green” vote in Europe is the predicted rise of far-right parties, the objective of so many of which is to cause conflict (the very thing that the EU was established to avoid).

In France, Spain, Austria and Germany there has been a swing to the right which threatens to weaken the pro-European majority in the European Parliament. At the last elections, I don’t believe many of us expected that there would be a war on European soil, right on the borders of several EU states. The solidity of Europe (and its solidarity too, which is slightly different) feels under threat. We have never needed conflict less than we do today. My friends and family often tell me that my vision of the world is apocalyptic, but I do hope that when we come to vote again in five years’ time there is still a free Europe and that today’s 12-year olds (who will be able to vote in Greece by then) will have nothing greater to worry about than the cost of loaves and soap powder.

 

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I’ve been to more than 40 Greek islands — this one is my favourite

The other day, I did a quick count of all the Greek islands I have visited, and it came to more than 40, with dozens more on my wish list.

One of the reasons I keep travelling to new and sometimes obscure islands is that they are all so individual. “The Greek islands” may get lumped together in people’s minds, but no two are the same. Each has a unique landscape, culture, history and tradition, and even food or vegetation that is particular to that place. Skiathos in the Sporades and Santorini in the Cyclades have about as much in common as Stratford-upon-Avon and Stratford in east London.

Image by WeeFee_Photography from Pixabay

There is something impressive, memorable and beautiful about every island I have visited. Crete is the one I know best. It feels like a small country, taking six hours to drive from end to end. It’s 30 years since my first visit, and I am still discovering new villages, beaches and aspects of culture despite the fact that I spend a few months there every year.

Last summer I visited the chic islands of Spetses and Hydra, the antithesis of the relatively rustic Crete, where sleek yachts line the marinas which are well served by gourmet restaurants and designer shops.

Other favourites of mine trace the dark history of Greece. Many of these have been inspirational to me, such as Makronisos, a barren island which was a prison during both the Greek civil war and the junta period, and Spinalonga, a former hospital island for leprosy patients. I have been there countless times and the atmosphere of the place gets to me every time.

The Cyclades are a big group with huge variety between them and Naxos is one of the islands I have visited most recently — and a place where I fell in love with a statue. More of that later, but needless to say it soared close to the top of my hit parade.

Something that I am sure of is that Greek islands are better visited and explored outside of summer. They have another character entirely without the glare of the sun, which can make us too languid to move from a sunbed or a shady taverna, when landscapes are parched and tourists outnumber locals.

Spring or autumn are when an island is its authentic self, when it reveals its true nature and when those who live there are really pleased to see you. In the spring, carpets of wild flowers are abundant on many islands. In the autumn the sea has had the whole summer to gather heat and the waters are calm and clean. You will have a whole bay to yourself to swim in.

I went to Naxos in October when the long sandy beaches of the west coast were all mine. I explored most of the island (which is the largest of the Cyclades, with mountains, wide valleys and almost 93 miles of coastline). I wanted to feel its atmosphere and appreciate its landscape before retreating into the ordered space of a museum. Unlike some of its smaller neighbours, the entirety of which can be discovered in little more than 24 hours, Naxos offers many days of touring and discovery, by car or on foot. I did both.

The best way to reach any island is by sea, even if there is a temptation to hop between them by plane. Approaching any island slowly across the waters always brings a sense of excitement and growing anticipation and this is particularly true of Naxos. For some distance, you can make out a huge doorway in the distance and as you come into the port, this massive structure towers over everything. This is the remains of the unfinished Temple of Apollo, and the emblem of the island. It is not the only monumental sight in Naxos.

Deep in the countryside, I tracked down two unfinished kouroi, male statues, still lying in the ground, abandoned in the marble quarries at Melanes and Apollona, where sculptors had begun to carve them in situ. These giant inchoate figures (one of them more than ten metres tall) were probably abandoned because cracks appeared in the marble before they were completed. There is something melancholy about them, but they live in my mind much more for their unfinished state.

Two villages especially cast their spell on me. One was Apeiranthos, birthplace of Manos Glezos, the hero of the resistance against the Nazis who famously tore down the swastika flag from the Acropolis in May 1941. He was subsequently sentenced to death several times, tortured for his leftist political views and even exiled by the Greek dictatorship. It made sense that someone born in this rugged village of marble-slabbed alleyways and arcades might have had the resilience to survive all of this and to live to the age of 97.

A very basic kafenion (traditional coffee house) in the village with its formica tables and stone floor has his name above the door. I drank a wonderfully muddy Greek coffee inside, reflecting on the fact that such a brilliant man had come from this tiny village.

The other village that charmed me was nearby Filoti, where a Venetian mansion stands at the centre. Much of Filoti’s colour was provided by its brightly painted doors and café chairs, and by the most stupendous hardware store. Its floor-to-ceiling shelves are laden with locally woven baskets displayed on turquoise shelving, and on the outer wall there are racks of bright metal wine jugs and funnels in blues and oranges. My hire-car rattled with samples in every colour and size when I left.

Even the food of Naxos had an intensity. Though the sight of grazing cows took me by surprise, I should have guessed that the silky-textured Naxiot cheese had such a source. Similarly, the fields of potatoes growing in fertile soil seemed incongruous on a Greek island but when I tasted some flavoursome fried potatoes on my first evening at Taverna Dalas — in the hills above the village of Koronos — I appreciated how short a distance these ingredients had travelled from field to plate. This is an island that could be self-sufficient, with all its fruit, grain, flocks of cows, sheep and goats — and that perfect cheese.

As well as all the archaeology waiting to be found on different parts of the island, a whole ancient city lies beneath the main, modern town of Chora. Some of these remains are visible today but much, much more is to be excavated.

The Archaeological Museum of Naxos, housed in an impressive Venetian building, displays one of the most impressive collections of Cycladic figurines, many of them dating from 2800 – 2300 BC. In quantity and quality, these statuettes, mainly of the female form and some several feet tall, are impressive. Standing in the main gallery of the museum, I found myself encircled by these unique, upright and strikingly modern representations of womanhood. From that moment, I knew I wanted to make one of these serene figures the centrepiece of a novel, an object of extreme beauty and desirability.

Even now, Naxos retains the sense that it was an important centre of culture and history in its ancient past. What is particularly alluring is its vibrancy in the present day, with traditions and crafts that remain important to the inhabitants, and the feeling that if no tourists ever went there again life would roll on. That’s my kind of Greek island.

(originally published in The Times)

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