When the Tree Sings
Published on 11. October 2022
Book
Paperback/Softback
232 pages
978-1-58988-168-6 (ISBN)
Description
"Set in an impoverished Greece at the cruel time of the German occupation during WWII, When the Tree Sings is a boy's eye view of war's terrible ways. His parents dead, his paternal home destroyed, the narrator lives with his aged grandmother. With barely enough to survive on, they struggle to avoid death, whether by hunger or violence. In short chapters, the unnamed narrator gives us the life of his village, filled with its vivid characters-the one-eyed companion, the Informer, the idiot, the whore, and more. And the wonder of this novel is how engaging the world is to the boy and, so, to readers, too, who accompany him on his sojourns. James Merrill described When the Tree Sings this way: "A history lovely and appalling as wildflowers from an old battleground.""--
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New Jersey
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 173 mm
Width: 111 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
208 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-58988-168-6 (9781589881686)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Stratis Haviaras (1935 -2020) was born in a village in the Peloponnese and grew up in Athens during WWII and the ensuing Greek Civil War. At thirty-two, he came to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he worked at Harvard University for forty years--twenty-six as the Curator of the Woodberry Poetry Room at the University. Founder of The Harvard Review, Haviaras published in Greek and English. His translations of poems by Seamus Heaney appear in Greek and those of Constantine Cavafy in English. His two famous English-language novels, When the Tree Sings and The Heroic Age, portray the lives of children as they struggle to survive the cruelty of war and its aftermath. When the Tree Sings was shortlisted for the National Book Award and named an ALA Notable book.