The Marked Men - Tapa blanda

Nearly every Greek is marked it seems: the Dolianites by geography, the priest psychologically, and Mandas merely because his father fought with a rightist wing of the Resistance. Among the burst skulls and aborted relationships there are some penetrating characterizations.

Vividly and realistically conveys the terror and confusion of the civil war and the yearning of the ordinary people--a 2000-year dream--to be masters of their own destiny in a country at peace with itself and its neighbors.

The Marked Men is a lament for Greece, the story of a handful of army deserters at the time of the Greek Civil War, trying to dig themselves in and defend a rural border village in the hope of rousing the countryside to a state of rebellion. . . . Mrs. Kazantzakis [in her foreword] is right to praise this novel's power, and she also might have asked, 'Have you ever heard of such a novel that takes place decades ago being banned in a country?' This is such a novel.

Fakinos uses the story of Doliani to sketch in the ugly and tragic history of his country. . . . In this novel [he] emerges . . . as a significant Greek writer.-The Nation