George Psychoundakis (1920–2006) was born and raised in the
remote Cretan village of Asi Gonia, where he received a rudimentary
education. When the German army invaded in 1941, he left his work
as a shepherd and joined the Resistance. He would eventually run
messages for the British Special Operations Executive, and was
noted for his speed and intimacy with the landscape. After the war
he was mistakenly imprisoned as a deserter and began writing what
would become The Cretan Runner (published in English in 1955 and in
Greek in 1986) while in prison. In addition to his memoir,
Psychoundakis wrote The Eagle’s Nest, a study of the customs of
Cretan mountain dwellers, and translated works by Hesiod and Homer
into the Cretan language. In 1945 Psychoundakis received the Medal
of the Order of the British Empire for Meritorious Service, and in
1981 he was recognized by the Academy of Athens for his
translations. He lived on Crete, with his wife and three children,
until the end of his life.
Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915–2011) chronicled his youthful
walk across Europe to Constantinople in a trilogy comprising A Time
of Gifts, Between the Woods and the Water, and The Broken Road.
After serving on Crete during World War II, Leigh Fermor settled in
Greece and his books Mani and Roumeli attest to his deep love for
the country. In 2004 he was knighted for his services to literature
and to British–Greek relations.
“Psychoundakis was able to master challenges that would stagger an
Olympic athlete: he could scramble snowy cliffs with a sixty-pound
pack on his back, run fifty-plus miles through the night on a
starvation diet of boiled hay, and outfox a Gestapo death squad
that had him cornered.”
—Christopher McDougall
“Psychoundakis’s effortlessly poetic account reflected a passionate
love of his homeland and its people, a geologist’s and botanist’s
eye, chortling bemusement at the habits of the upper-class British
agents, and deep comradeship with his fellow resistance
fighters.”
—Simon Steyne, The Guardian
“There have been other memoirs of wartime Crete but those were
visitors’ books. George’s story, as Leigh Fermor points out in the
introduction, is unique.”
—Allison Pearson
“Any fresh volume on the subject would need to be exceptional. The
Cretan Runner not only competes but transcends; it is not
exceptional, it is unique.”
—The Times Literary Supplement
“The book has at once a calm of a race which takes it for granted
that life is full of death, and the excitement of a fighter who
wildly enjoys his own part of the dangerous business. It is full of
jokes and full of pride.”
—Sunday Times
“But now Psychoundakis's style seems the fresher, a scrappy, honest
account of a temporary alliance with, and allegiance to, an
external force in order to rid Crete of its occupiers. And with all
the frustrations, disagreements, misunderstandings and damaged
pride, as well as boozy parties and heroism, that entailed.”
—Vera Rules
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