Novel
Life in the Tomb
Η ζωή εν τάφω
Stratis Myrivilis · 1924
Synopsis
Antonis Kotsoulas, a young man from Mytilene who has volunteered, keeps a diary of his days at the front. The earth dug at night, the niches cut into the trench wall, the mud, the lice, the officers, the comrades: he notes everything down, and the drive that had carried him forward wears away as time goes on.
Context
The title comes from the Orthodox liturgy: it is the hymn of Good Friday, a funeral lament in expectation of the Resurrection. The text first appeared in instalments in the weekly Kambana of Mytilene, from April 1923 to January 1924, then in volume in the same town in 1924; the expanded Athens version of 1930 made its author famous almost overnight, and he revised it until 1956. The author never uses the word novel for it. Peter Bien translated it into English in 1977. An abridged French version appeared as early as 1933; the complete translation by Louis-Carle Bonnard and André Protopazzi, revised by Dominique Goust, came in 2016.
Who it is for
A trench diary of four hundred pages, available in French in a complete version since 2016. Nothing to know beforehand, as the narrator explains everything as he goes.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the turning point at which Greek prose comes of age, it is the Greek book of the Great War, and its language, close to speech, has set a school.