The Flight of Ikaros

"One of the great and lasting books about Greece." Patrick Leigh Fermor

In 1947, at the age of twenty-three, Kevin Andrews received a fellowship to study medieval fortresses in the Peloponnese. This opportunity to travel through areas little-frequented by foreignersduring and just after Greece's civil war, and before the advent of tourism, industrialization, or easy communicationsbrought him into immediate contact with village populations, shepherd clans, and the paramilitary vigilantes who kept their own kind of order in the provinces, as well as with the displaced peasants of the Athenian slums. His intense experience of Greek life and his embracing of the Greek people take shape in The Flight of Ikaros. Paul Dry Books is pleased to bring this modern travel classic back into print.

Kevin Andrews (19241989) was a writer and archaelogist. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, he attended Harvard University and then traveled to Greece on a Fulbright fellowship. In addition to The Flight of Ikaros, he wrote many other books about Greece, where he became a citizen in 1975.

"Kevin Andrews experienced the dangers of the countryside during the civil war. The Flight of Ikaros, the book he produced from his travels, remains not only one of the greatest we have about postwar Greecememorializing a village culture that has almost vanishedbut also one of the most moving accounts I have ever read of people caught up in political turmoil. (It is richer than George Orwell's Homage to Cataloniabecause Andrews spent more time getting to know the people he wrote about.) Flight was first published in 1959 and last reprinted by Penguin in 1984. For too many years, this rare account has languished out of print." David Mason in the Wall Street Journal (11/6/2010, read the full review)

"An intense and compelling account of an educated, sensitive archeologist wandering the back country during the civil war. Half a century on, still one of the best books on Greece as it was before 'development.'" Rough Guide to the Greek Islands

"He also is in love with the country . . . but he sees the other side of that dazzling medal or moon . . . If you want some truth about Greece, here it is." Louis MacNeice in the Observer

"One of the best and most honest books about the modern Greeks." E. R. Dodds

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