Alexia: a tale for advanced children

Author: Antigone Kefala
Title: Alexia: a tale for advanced children
(fiction, English-Greek)
Original text in English – translated into Greek and introduced by Helen Nickas
110 pp ISBN 0 646 25745 5
Date of publication: 1995
$15.00

Alexia is a fictional account, in the fairytale mode, of the experiences of a Greek refugee family who settles in New Zealand in the fifties. The story centres on Alexia, the young heroine whose world is literally turned upside down when she finds herself surrounded by people whose language and culture are totally alien to her. With a mixture of a child naivety and grown-up ironic humour, the story gives the stark ethnic, linguistic and cultural contrasts, which an experience of displacement entails.

Antigone Kefala was born in Romania of Greek parents and has lived in Sydney since 1960. Her poetry publications include Absence: new and selected poems (Hale & Iremonger, 1992, 1998). Her prose works include The Island (Hale & Iremonger, 1984), Alexia: a tale of two cultures (John Ferguson, 1984); bilingual and trilingual versions of Alexia and The Island (Owl, 1995 and 2002) as well as her latest Summer Visit: three novellas (Giramondo 2002).

This publication has been supported by the Australia Council