HELBI

“Magical Greece,” a book of photographs and text allows us to travel through Greece continually, even now that the holidays are over. “Magical Greece,” from Kerkyra Publications, presents photographs by Andreas Smaragdis, a professor of photography, and text by Eleni Gage, the daughter of the well-known former New York Times journalist, Nicholas (author of the bestseller “Eleni,” which tells the story of his mother’s murder by Communist guerrillas during the Greek civil war). The album, which contains texts written in both Greek and English, encapsulates within its 146 pages the fragile magic of Greece through the four seasons. The publication is well-timed as we return from our holidays with the photographs that we took in an effort to keep something of the charm and relaxation of our vacations.

Eleni Gage has not only inherited her father’s talent, she has also broadened her horizons by studying folklore and mythology at Harvard and received a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Columbia. She works as a journalist in New York and is an instructor of writing composition at Columbia. That’s a long way from Lia, her mother’s mountain village in Thesprotia which was caught in the storm of civil war. Her brother Christos became a film producer and Eleni a promising writer. Andreas Smaragdis is the brother of Yiannis Smaragdis, director of the films “Cavafy” and “El Greco.” He has published 12 albums of photographs in Greece, the Balkans and the Middle East. The moment that he takes a photograph is sacred to him – encapsulating time, feeling and the sense of being alone. This album makes a great present for foreign friends, so that they might experience the light and colors, the climate of Greece throughout the seasons. Phrases by Lord Byron and Lawrence Durrell provide perfect captions for photographs of a Greece suspended between heaven and earth, touching the divine and allowing human beings to dream...