Authors: Lawrence Durrell
Besaquino
No stars to guide. Death is that quiet cartouche,
A nun-besought preserve of praying time,
That like a great lion silence hunts,
At noon, at ease, and all because he must.
His scenery is so old, His sacred pawtouch cold.
A lupercal of girls remember him
In nights defunct from lack of sleep
Tossing on iron beds awaiting dawn â¦
He wound up his death each evening like a clock,
Walked to obscure cafes to criticize
The fires that blush upon the crown of Etna.
Leopardi in the ticking mind,
Lay unknown like an exiled king,
Printing his dreams among the olive glades
In orchards of discontent the fruitful word.
Acknowledgements
T
hough all the characters in this book are imaginary I would like to thank some real people who made it possible as well as pleasurable. M. Pages and Madame Robert of Nimes-Voyages for their itinerary and Simone Lestoquard for hunting up the illustrations in Paris.
L
AWRENCE
D
URRELL
Index
A
Aedoni
146
Agrigento
69
,
78
,
131â193
,
196â198
,
201
,
235
,
254
,
284
Apollinaire, Guillaume
184
Athens
4
,
66â68
,
70
,
73
,
76
,
78
,
109
,
116
,
118
,
120
,
133
,
135
,
156
,
160
,
167
,
174
,
180
,
265
,
285
B
Baedeker
122
Baudelaire, Charles
184
Butler, Samuel
218
Byzantine empire
133
,
138
,
224
,
256
,
264
c
Caesar, Julius
278
Calabria
133
Calatafimi
236â237
Cameirus
43
Carlentini
43
Castello Maniace
101
Catania
3
,
6â7
,
10â21
,
23
,
41
,
59
Catanian Plain
42
Cavafy
184
Centuripe
284
Chaos
158
Charles V, Emperor
216
Colonna, Vittoria della
148
Corfu
18
,
65
,
85â86
,
100
,
149
,
262
Cos
236
Cyprus
2â5
,
9
,
13
,
17
,
29
,
47
,
52
,
63
,
65
,
131
,
133
,
136
,
148
,
152â153
,
171
,
206
,
208
,
258
,
275
Dali, Salvador
178
Damarete
93
Diodorus Siculus
190
Dodecanese Islands
145
Douglas, Norman
275
E
Egadi Isles
216
Empedocles
60
175â176
,
178
,
180
,
183
,
286
Empedocles (port)
195
Enna
275
Epidaurus
236
Etna
15â16
,
34
,
38
,
41
,
52
,
76
,
180
,
183
,
272
,
274â275
,
284
,
286â287
,
290
Euphemius
138
F
Famagusta
13
Favignana
216
G
Garibaldi, Giuseppe
37
Gela
69
,
92
,
94â95
,
141
,
148â150
Guido, Margaret
190
H
Heraclius, Emperor
142
Hieron I
94
I
Ionian Sea
16
Ithaca
218
K
Kazantzakis
180â181
Kephissos
75
Kesserling, Field Marshal
278
Kininmonth, Christopher
144
L
Lampedusa
103
Lawrence, D. H.
62
,
103
,
274â275
Lentini
43
Leptis Magna
199
Levanzo
216
Lindos
85â86
Lucretius
176
Lycabettos
108
M
Mackenzie, Compton
275
Marettimo
218
Mentobello Beach
245
Messina
241
,
255
,
259
,
261
,
264â268
,
284
,
286
Midi
7
,
111â112
,
123
,
136
,
138
,
187
Miller, Henry
63
Minoa
81
Mistral, Frédéric
184
Monreale
255
Monte Giuliano
216
Monte Pellegrino
251
Morgantina
146
N
O
P
Palermo
201
,
208
,
226
,
233
,
241â242
,
244
Pantalica
284
Parparella
218
Piazza Armerina
141
Pirandello, Luigi
103
,
158â159
Plymerion
120
Pompey
278
Porto Rafti
157
Psychico
157
Pythagoras
171
R
Rhodes
6
,
15
,
43
,
63
,
65
,
73
,
78
,
86
,
136
,
145
Rimbaud, Arthur
184
Roger II, Count of Sicily
264
Rome
2
,
6
,
8â10
,
51
,
74
,
103
,
209
,
222
,
273
,
279
Rosalie, Saint
249â254
Russell, Bertrand
176
S
Seferis
181â182
Sikelianos
180â184
Simeto river
43
Simonides
94
Smyrna
133
Spain
136â137
Sparta
120
Split
146
Suetonius
92
Swinburne, Algernon Charles
184
Syracuse
41
,
57â59
,
60
135
,
138
,
150
,
216
,
279
,
283
T
Taormina
6
,
153
,
241
,
259
,
261
,
264
,
268â269
,
270
Theocritus
241
Theron
93
Timoleon
278
Tivoli
146
Tyrrhenian Sea
216
V
Verlaine, Paul
184
Villa Imperiale
141
W
X
Xante
16
A Biography of Lawrence Durrell
Lawrence Durrell (1912â1990) was a novelist, poet, and travel writer best known for the Alexandria Quartet, his acclaimed series of four novels set before and during World War II in Alexandria, Egypt. Durrell's work was widely praised, with his Quartet winning the greatest accolades for its rich style and bold use of multiple perspectives. Upon the Quartet's completion,
Life
called it “the most discussed and widely admired serious fiction of our time.”
Born in Jalandhar, British India, in 1912 to Indian-born British colonials, Durrell was an avid and dedicated writer from an early age. He studied in Darjeeling before his parents sent him to England at the age of eleven for his formal education. When he failed to pass his entrance examinations at Cambridge University, Durrell committed himself to becoming an established writer. He published his first book of poetry in 1931 when he was just nineteen years old, and later worked as a jazz pianist to help fund his passion for writing.
Determined to escape England, which he found dreary, Durrell convinced his widowed mother, siblings, and first wife, Nancy Isobel Myers, to move to the Greek island of Corfu in 1935. The island lifestyle reminded him of the India of his childhood. That same year, Durrell published his first novel,
Pied Piper of Lovers.
He also read Henry Miller's
Tropic of Cancer
and, impressed by the notorious novel, he wrote an admiring letter to Miller. Miller responded in kind, and their correspondence and friendship would continue for forty-five years. Miller's advice and work heavily influenced Durrell's provocative third novel,
The Black Book
(1938), which was published in Paris. Though it was Durrell's first book of note,
The Black Book
was considered mildly pornographic and thus didn't appear in print in Britain until 1973.
In 1940, Durrell and his wife had a daughter, Penelope Berengaria. The following year, as World War II escalated and Greece fell to the Nazis, Durrell and his family left Corfu for work in Athens, Kalamata (also in Greece), then Alexandria, Egypt. His relationship with Nancy was strained by the time they reached Egypt, and they separated in 1942. During the war, Durrell served as a press attaché to the British Embassy. He also wrote
Prospero's Cell,
a guide to Corfu, while living in Egypt in 1945.