Slaves in Their Chains

This first English translation of Theotokis's tragicomic masterpiece (1922) is the story of a noble family's descent into poverty, dishonor, suicide, and madness - and a brilliantly entertaining portrayal of fin-de-siecle Corfu. An aging landowner in the clutches of a wily money-lender, his daughter forced to sacrifice her idealistic lover for a crude but wealthy doctor, and her idle brother in thrall to a vindictive mistress, all come dramatically to life in scenes of passionate intensity, with a deftly caricatured supporting cast of bankers, poets, impoverished aristocrats, loose wives, charitable widows, and aspiring politicians. ""I am delighted that this last and most ambitious novel by one of modern Greece's leading and most interesting authors is appearing in English.""--Peter Mackridge, University of Oxford.