Mermaid Singing and Peel Me a Lotus — Charmian Clift
HarperCollins — Paperback bind-up edition.
In the winter of 1954, Australian author Charmian Clift arrived on the remote and poverty-stricken Greek island of Kalymnos with her author-husband, George Johnston, and their two children, aged five and seven. They spoke no Greek, knew no one, and had nowhere to live. But Clift was looking for a mermaid: for something magical or mystical that would change her life.
What she found on the island was her own unique literary voice, expressed for the first time in her travel memoir Mermaid Singing. She also found inspiration for her feminism in the island’s matriarchal society. And the experience of adapting to a new culture formed her understanding of what immigrants go through. All three discoveries underpinned the author’s subsequent life, work and political viewpoint.
This genre-breaking memoir was so far ahead of its time that its value has only been fully recognised in recent years.
In 1956, Clift and Johnson moved on to the island of Hydra, where they bought a house, had a third child, and started a legend. Peel Me a Lotus is the record of the family’s first year on the island that would be their home for the next decade.
HarperCollins — Paperback bind-up edition.
In the winter of 1954, Australian author Charmian Clift arrived on the remote and poverty-stricken Greek island of Kalymnos with her author-husband, George Johnston, and their two children, aged five and seven. They spoke no Greek, knew no one, and had nowhere to live. But Clift was looking for a mermaid: for something magical or mystical that would change her life.
What she found on the island was her own unique literary voice, expressed for the first time in her travel memoir Mermaid Singing. She also found inspiration for her feminism in the island’s matriarchal society. And the experience of adapting to a new culture formed her understanding of what immigrants go through. All three discoveries underpinned the author’s subsequent life, work and political viewpoint.
This genre-breaking memoir was so far ahead of its time that its value has only been fully recognised in recent years.
In 1956, Clift and Johnson moved on to the island of Hydra, where they bought a house, had a third child, and started a legend. Peel Me a Lotus is the record of the family’s first year on the island that would be their home for the next decade.
HarperCollins — Paperback bind-up edition.
In the winter of 1954, Australian author Charmian Clift arrived on the remote and poverty-stricken Greek island of Kalymnos with her author-husband, George Johnston, and their two children, aged five and seven. They spoke no Greek, knew no one, and had nowhere to live. But Clift was looking for a mermaid: for something magical or mystical that would change her life.
What she found on the island was her own unique literary voice, expressed for the first time in her travel memoir Mermaid Singing. She also found inspiration for her feminism in the island’s matriarchal society. And the experience of adapting to a new culture formed her understanding of what immigrants go through. All three discoveries underpinned the author’s subsequent life, work and political viewpoint.
This genre-breaking memoir was so far ahead of its time that its value has only been fully recognised in recent years.
In 1956, Clift and Johnson moved on to the island of Hydra, where they bought a house, had a third child, and started a legend. Peel Me a Lotus is the record of the family’s first year on the island that would be their home for the next decade.