“Gradma Eleni says it’s my name, Astradeni, that’s to blame, because Astradeni means ‘the one who binds the stars.’ And who, other than a fairy creature, can bind the stars? I don’t tell anyone this, of course…”

Astradeni, now considered a contemporary classic, follows a poor family that moves from Symi, an island near Turkey, to Athens for a better life. Leaving the simplicity of rural life behind, Astradeni, an 11-year-old girl, and her parents hope that Greece’s capital will provide them with better luck and money. But they arrive there only to taste more bitterness as the city is plagued by corruption and a snobbish attitude of rejection towards non-athenians.

Clever and sentimental Astradeni observes her parents’ anguish, her father’s difficulty in finding a job, and weights up the family’s “great expectations” and reality.

However agile Astradeni may be, she will also fall victim of great disappointments and of a traumatic incident that will haunt both her and the reader forever…

An engaging story narrated by the point of view of a child, about the Greek “dreaming big or going home” and the brutality and injustice of life in the city.

Kedros, 1982, 249 P.