Niki: A Novel [Paperback]

A resilient Greek woman recounts her and her family’s extraordinary story at the end of her life, marked by the great historical events of the twentieth century.

Born in 1938, Niki, the daughter of the deputy secretary general of the Greek Communist Party, is swept up in turmoil before her first birthday: her parents are arrested, and she joins her mother in exile on an island near Santorini. Growing up, she experiences the Italian and German invasion, the Nazi occupation, and the civil war that came after, often caught between her socialist values and those of the right-wing establishment, to which half her relatives belong.
         Through her memories and the stories of her family, with roots on both coasts of the Aegean Sea, Niki also tells the history of Greece and Asia Minor from the late nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth. Her remarkable tales, full of humor and verve in spite of hardship, are populated by working-class heroes, privileged elites, daring revolutionaries, and free-spirited bohemians.“Niki is an extraordinary work of historical fiction. A sweeping look at Greek history told through the eyes of a woman whose life reflects the turmoil, hardships, tenacity, and profound love of family and country that so many experienced as they struggled to survive war, political turmoil, and the everyday hardships of life. Niki is at once a searing story of one woman’s experiences and a master class in modern Greek history. A must-read for readers interested in the intersection of history and humanity.” —Yvette Manessis Corporon, internationally bestselling author of Where the Wandering Ends, When the Cypress Whispers, and SolcX