Novel
Η φόνισσα
Not translated into English
Alexandros Papadiamantis · 1903
Opening lines
Μισοπλαγιασμένη κοντά εις την εστίαν, με σφαλιστά τα όμματα, την κεφαλήν ακουμβώσα εις το κράσπεδον της εστίας, το λεγόμενον «φουγοπόδαρο», η θεια Χαδούλα, η κοινώς καλουμένη Γιαννού η Φράγκισσα, δεν εκοιμάτο, αλλ' εθυσίαζε τον ύπνον πλησίον εις το λίκνον της ασθενούσης μικράς εγγονής της.
Half reclining near the hearth, her eyes closed, her head resting on the edge of the fireplace, the so-called “fougopodaro”, Aunt Chadoula, commonly called Giannou the Frank, was not asleep, but was sacrificing her sleep beside the cradle of her sick little granddaughter.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
On an island in the Aegean Sea, an old woman leans over the cradle of her newborn granddaughter and recalls everything the women of her family have endured. She has spent her life watching poor girls doomed to misery and to an impossible dowry, and ends by convincing herself that death would be a deliverance for them. What she then does, she explains to herself without ever doubting.
Context
The novel appeared in seventeen chapters in the Athenian review Panathinaia, from January to June 1903, and was collected in volume form only in 1912, with five other texts by its author. It is short, written in the Greek of the learned mixed with the speech of the islands, and it does not judge its character: the old woman reasons, and her reasoning holds together. What the book calls into question is the dowry, which made a girl born poor a burden on her family until her marriage. The action takes place on Skiathos, as in almost everything the author wrote. Costas Ferris made a film of it in 1974.
Who it is for
A short novel, in a language mixing learned Greek and the speech of the islands. The subject is direct and without consolation.
Prizes and reception
Translated into some twenty languages, it is through this work that nineteenth-century Greek prose is known outside Greece.