The Cretan Runner

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I was unfamiliar with pretty much everything that was happening during WW2 in Crete, so I appreciated this perspective. It is complete with petty arguments, daily routine, local culture, and mildly comic insights about the Allied forces the author (a local Cretan resistance member) encounters. It is refreshing and not smoothed to align with a victorious narrative, although I am still interested in reading some of the available accounts written by the translator and other British men who are mentioned in this account for another perspective.

The Cretan Runner - Facebook The Cretan Runner - Facebook

The Cretan runners all performed exceptional feats and made essential contributions to the British operations during World War II. George’s efforts to deliver messages from Kastelli-Kissamos to Paleochora in the south bring to mind the 490 BC Pheidippides running 42 km from the battle of Marathon to tell about the victory over the Persians. That runner died after delivering the message. As for George, the distance he ran to avoid the Nazis over the White Mountains was twice as far. He made the trek over deep rivers and past Nazi outposts and patrols in one night. Plowman, Jeffrey (2013). War in the Balkans: The Battle for Greece and Crete 1940–1941. Barnsley: Pen and Sword Military. ISBN 978-1-78159-248-9. Hardcover. Condition: Good. Good condition book with slipcase. Content is clean and bright throughout. Free from inscriptions or markings. Good Slipcase. George was a one-off, as they say. Nobody was remotely like him. Touchstone and Ariel spring to mind, and there is a dash of Kim. It was the oddity, independence, charm, curiosity, and imagination that gave him the cover-name of “Changeling” in our dispatches from Crete.” Postwar life [ edit ] Book covers of Psychoundakis' translations of the Iliad and Odyssey to the Cretan dialect.Find sources: "George Psychoundakis"– news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR ( January 2013) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) rep) Or.dec.cl. 221pp. b/w plates. Fine in slip-case. Second Edition. A personal account of the Battle of Crete, 1941. Psychoundakis’s effortlessly poetic account reflected a passionate love of his homeland and its people, a geologist’s and botanist’s eye, chortling bemusement at the habits of the upper-class British agents, and deep comradeship with his fellow resistance fighters. Psychoundakis’s effortlessly poetic account reflected a passionate love of his homeland and its people, a geologist’s and botanist’s eye, chortling bemusement at the habits of the upper-class British agents, and deep comradeship with his fellow resistance fighters.”—Simon Steyne, The Guardian

The Cretan Runner: His Story of the German Occupation

Shopping for someone else but not sure what to give them? Give them the gift of choice with a New York Review Books Gift Card. Gift CardsThe author goes on to describe the worn clothes and patched boots George wore, and of his unshakeable humor. In the midst of all the harshness of war, and of everyday life under the harshest conditions, Psychoundakis exemplified the Cretan spirit. Crete can be a foreboding place in Summer and Winter, and the resistance fighters were constantly in the elements. Any fresh volume on the subject would need to be exceptional. The Cretan Runner not only competes but transcends; it is not exceptional, it is unique.”— The Times Literary Supplement very down-to-earth and humble retelling, with a Cretan native’s view of Cretan traditions, humour, lifestyle, and way of thinking. George Psychoundakis BEM ( Greek: Γεώργιος Ψυχουντάκης, 3 November 1920 – 29 January 2006) was a member of the Greek Resistance on Crete during the Second World War and after the war an author. Following the German invasion, between 1941 and 1945, he served as the dispatch runner for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) operations on Crete, as part of the Cretan resistance. During the postwar years he was at first mistakenly imprisoned as a deserter. While in prison he wrote his wartime memoirs, which were published as The Cretan Runner. Later he translated key classical Greek texts into the Cretan dialect. Dear, I. C. B.; Foot, M. R. D. (1995). The Oxford Companion to the Second World War. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-866225-9– via Archive Foundation.

The Cretan Runner by George Psychoundakis: Books - AbeBooks The Cretan Runner by George Psychoundakis: Books - AbeBooks

I found this book very enjoyable as it was written as a series of stories and anecdotes by a Cretan who acted as "runner" for the British in their attempts to free Crete from the Nazi yolk. Hardcover. Condition: Fine. First Thus. First Folio Society printing. A Fine copy in like slipcase.Koukounas, Demosthenes (2013). Η Ιστορία της Κατοχής[ History of the Occupation] (in Greek). Vol.II. Athens: Livani. ISBN 978-9-60-142687-7.

The Cretan Runner: His story of the German Occupation

Psychoundakis, George (1955). The Cretan Runner: His Story of the German Occupation. London: John Murray. OCLC 753260092. From 1974 until his retirement, Psychoundakis, together with another fighter in the Greek resistance, Manolis Paterakis, were caretakers at the German war cemetery on Hill 107 above Maleme. George Psychoundakis buried Bruno Brauer when he was re-interred on Crete later in the 1970s. [5] Sources [ edit ]First FS Edition. 230mm x 150mm (9" x 6"). xxxv, 221pp + plates. 22 b/w plates. VG : in very good condition with dark green slipcase. Slipcase marked and faded Cream pictorial boards with gilt titles. George was a foot-soldier who did nothing glamorous but whose, and other Cretans like him, efforts were essential in harassing the Germans and helping the Allied war effort. Full of death, and the excitement of a fighter who wildly enjoys his own part of the dangerous business Sunday Times