Novel
The Third Wedding
Το τρίτο στεφάνι
Kostas Tachtsis · 1962
Synopsis
Two women of the Athenian petty bourgeoisie, Nina and Ekavi, speak in turn. Husbands, children, mothers-in-law, lodgings, quarrels: through their voices, in the language of every day, pass the years before the war, the Occupation and those that followed, without either of them ever gaining any perspective.
Context
Written partly in Australia and refused by several publishers, the book came out in 1962 at the author's own expense. Jacques Lacarrière translated it for Gallimard as early as 1967, in the Du monde entier series; in 1969 it became the first Greek novel published by Penguin, and John Chioles gave a new English translation in 1985. The channel ANT1 made a series from it in 1995, and the National Theatre a four-hour adaptation in 2009. Michel Cacoyannis, among others, had tried in vain to make a film of it.
Who it is for
Two hundred and sixty pages, available in French since 1967. Nothing to know in advance: the two narrators explain everything, and often twice.
Prizes and reception
Translated into eighteen languages, it is regarded as a milestone of postwar Greek prose, and its spoken language of a woman has founded a school.