The Book Of Katerina

My name is Katerina, and I died by a route dark and lonely, for there was too much in me I could bear no longer. In this acclaimed Greek novel, Auguste Corteau imagines his own mother's inner life, observing with wit and earthy humour the saga of her extended family's ups and downs in the city of Thessaloniki over three generations. From the poverty of the early years through to affluence and aspirations of grandeur, Katerina drags her husband and son into the chaos of her life: sicknesses are hidden, siblings fight for love and attention while feckless husbands and unwanted children are riven through the family story.

CORTEAU is the pen name of Petros Hatzopoulos. Born in Thessaloniki in 1979, he has lived for the last decade in Athens. He is the author of fourteen novels as well as plays, novellas and short story collections and is a recipient of the Greek National Book Award for Children's Literature. He has also translated more than thirty works of literature into Greek, from Nabokov's Lolita to Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men. Corteau, an LGBT activist, in 2016 signed a Cohabitation Pact with his partner, the first same-sex couple to do so after the law was passed in the Greek Parliament.