Still the Cicadas Sing: A Boy Comes of Age in Nazi Occupied Athens

Alkinoos, an Athenian boy, is growing up in the shadow of Parthenon, in his own innocent world. It is the 1930s and Greece is ruled by the dictator Ioannis Metaxas. In October 1940 Mussolini demands passage of his armies through Greece. Metaxas refuses and Italy declares war. The Greeks are victorious, pushing the Italians back. Seeing his Axis ally Mussolini humiliated, Hitler invades Greece. The dreamy world of Alkinoos turns into one of brutal occupation, of famine and executions. This is a story of the boy’s coming of age, of romance with the enemy, a German girl, a Circe with violet eyes. It is a story of things that are not what they seem to be. Of daring undertakings under the nose of the Gestapo, of Odyssean heroism, wiliness and wisdom… and of eventual tragedy. An ancient Hellenic world of pathos and nobleness revisited and relived. Still the Cicadas Sing is the story of a boy’s spirited survival within a world of darkness and pervading death. It is a literary novel that will take the reader on a fascinating journey in Nazi occupied Athens, blending the history of Greece of that period, a little known chapter of the War, with adolescent love, with passion and intrigue.