We gazed transfixed across the small, strangely tropical bay at the bottom of the hill, and the surrounding palm trees and sandy beaches. Beyond the bay was the wide expanse of the Saronic Gulf, with its distant traffic of boats leaving for the islands and returning to the port at Piraeus.
Reviews
By Harry Eyres, 14 AUG 2004

“Getting to know more about a relatively unsung capital is just one of several reasons to read “Eurydice Street”, Sofka Zinovieff’s captivating book about going to live in the city as the wife of a Greek official and mother of two rapidly Hellenising daughters….
It is infused with an indomitable joie de vivre. “

27 MAY 2004

“A witty and engaging account of life in Athens”

By Francis King, 22 MAY 2004

“In the summer of 2001 Sofka Zinovieff accompanied her husband on a posting back to Athens. This book is both an account of her enthusiastic, if often balked, attempts to transform herself into a Greek, and a vivid evocation of a city in a chaotic ferment of change. In its lively and often trenchant blend of personal recollection and a depiction of an Athens of rowdy tavernas, resourceful refugees, majestic prostitutes, innumerable theatre companies, ferocious demonstrations and age-old customs affectionately preserved, this is a thoroughly engaging memoir.”

By Cressida Connolly, 04 MAY 2004

“Athens forms the background of Sofka’s writing debut, Eurydice Street, full of insight and humour. It is subtle, penetrating and written with disarming clarity. Sofka Zinovieff deserves a place on the shelves up there with Lawrence Durrell and Patrick Leigh Fermor.”

By Peter Stothard, 16 APR 2004

“A guidebook of a kind, a guide to the Athens that is rather than the Athens that is trying to be. It is both a modest and a magnificently well-judged book, which anyone thinking of an Athenian trip ought to read. It is generous, appreciative as well as exasperated. “

By Elisabeth Luard, 18 JUN 2004

“The best way to understand the oddness of what it means to be Greek, the race which invented the concept of civilization, is to become Greek yourself.Sofka Zinovieff does just that. As an anthropologist, the author observes the process with an objective eye; as a wife and mother, it’s nothing less than total immersion.… Here is the inside track on what it means to be Greek; a lovely book, full of poetry, history and insights. “

02 AUG 2004

“In telling her story, she provides insights for anyone who might want to travel to the ancient city. (”There’s a definite knack to obtaining a taxi in Athens, which is something between catching a fish and public speaking to a restive crowd. You wave at any taxi, whether it has other passengers in it or not, and as it swerves over towards you, slowing down slightly, you shout out your destination. The taxi may be empty and ignore you, or it may be almost full and stop. ”

14 AUG 2004

“An engaging profile of Europe’s most paradoxical capital – old as the hills, yet inventing itself anew. Zinovieff, polyglot and trained anthropologist, reveals her adopted home town with wit and perspicacity, from its hectic history to its domestic idiosyncrasies… In the end, this is a love story.”

08 AUG 2004

“It is in the best tradition of ‘subjective’ books where the subject is so sensitive, knowledgeable and talented that the result can only be a roaring success.”

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