Author(s): Margarita Liberaki

Novel | Greece | Translated fiction | Historical

With an introduction by Sunday Times bestselling author Victoria Hislop

'That summer we bought big straw hats. Maria's had cherries around the rim, Infanta's had forget-me-nots, and mine had poppies as red as fire. . .'
Three Summers is a warm and tender tale of three sisters growing up in the countryside near Athens before the Second World War. Living in a ramshackle old house with their divorced mother are flirtatious, hot-headed Maria, beautiful but distant Infanta, and dreamy and rebellious Katerina, through whose eyes the story is mostly observed. Over three summers, the girls share and keep secrets, fall in and out of love, try to understand the strange ways of adults and decide what kind of adults they hope to become.
'A dreamy modernist gem of a novel... elegant and striking' Publishers Weekly 'A leisurely, large-hearted coming-of-age novel, earthy and innocent, nostalgic and beautifully rendered' Kirkus
'A dreamy, cinematic tapestry of Greek village life' NPR

Review: 
The written equivalent of lying in the sun eating figs. I liked it much more than Elena Ferrante's books, but that's the general ballpark, except jollier. As Polly Samson writes in the preface, it brings to mind I Capture the Castle. Gorgeous -- India Knight * Sunday Times *
A dreamy modernist gem of a novel... elegant and striking * Publishers Weekly *
A dreamy, cinematic tapestry of Greek village life * NPR *
A leisurely, large-hearted coming-of-age novel, earthy and innocent, nostalgic and beautifully rendered * Kirkus *
We must be grateful to the Penguin European Writers series, a precious venture in these dark times -- John Banville
The sun has disappeared from books these days... You are one of those who pass it on -- Albert Camus to Margarita Liberaki
Drifting blossom, girlish secrets and lantern-lit dances pervade the 1946 Greek classic Three Summers, by Margarita Liberaki, featuring three sisters on the brink of adulthood on a pre-civil-war country estate at Kifissia, outside Athens. Just reissued, this innocent gem is often compared to Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle * Country & Townhouse *
With its sensuous prose, nostalgic charm, playful humour and evocation of burgeoning sexuality, this novel is the literary equivalent of a sun-soaked holiday in Greece * CultureWhisper *

Author Biography: Margarita Liberaki (1919-2001) was a Greek novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. Her acclaimed novel Three Summers is still taught in Greek schools and tops lists as one of the country's favourite books of all time. It is also widely beloved in France, where it was first published on the recommendation of Albert Camus, who wrote to Liberaki- "The sun has disappeared from books these days... You are one of those who pass it on."