I was somewhat nervous of embarking on a dusty historical narrative (and I'm afraid I didn't really gain much from Mr Leigh Fermor's introduction), but the rest of the narrative was incredible. To have someone explain first-hand the amazing pain, suffering and yet dignity suffered by the Cretans during WWII was heart-rending. I felt like shaking my next door neighbours in our hotel (95% german tourists) and demanding that they account for the attrocities inflicted by their parents and grandparents.

Because of George's simple view of life (which is NOT to say that he is simple: far from it), the narrative is refreshingly accessible. Candid in the extreme, and a real eye-opener.

Go to Crete. Buy the book. Read the book. Don't EVER forget.


The Cretan Runner - Buy this book!   August 7, 1999
 26 out of 32 found this review helpful

Read this book: George still needs the money! Psychondakis is, or at least was, an authentic genius. Now in his late seventies & still resident in his birth-village after a life of near poverty no-one is more deserving of a belated windfall... The history of George's life & trials is eruditely covered in Fermor's excellent introduction. After a valiant & poorly rewarded war he endured false imprisonment & near persecution whilst still managing to turn out volumes of translation & poetry. The 'Runner' itself was written during the course of the war when George was in his early twenties & working for the British & the Cretan resistance & tells the story of the struggle for liberation from the Germans from the point of view of an uneducated 'though brilliantly articulate Cretan peasant. The strengths lie in its' witty pen portraits of the allied officers that George meets & in its' conveyance of the utter hatred & disgust felt by the local people for their barbaric German oppressors. Fermor's own translation of George's original manuscript neither alters or edits anything significant in either the narrative nor in the rhythms of Psycoundakis' slightly idiosyncratic demotic prose. Only recently republished in Penguin paperback the book is widely available at last & provides perhaps the only authentic indigenous account of a neglected war theatre, though one much visited by the British, & sadly German, tourist.


An outstanding read and a thoroughly novel viewpoint   January 1, 1999
 16 out of 17 found this review helpful

It is rare to read accounts of the guerilla war in Europe written by the local participants, rather than the Allied officers sent in to direct them and that makes this book all the more valuable. It is unaffected, honest and an extraordinary account of an extraordinary war. How the Cretan people kept going in the face of such hideous brutality is a testament to the human spirit. The bravery of the individual players left me incredulous.

Buy this book -- you won't regret it.


An incredible story told by an incredible man.   October 22, 1998
 19 out of 20 found this review helpful

A very lively account of a forgotten theatre of the Second World War. Though forgotten it was no less brutal and the descriptions of the German reprisals on the local populace are harrowing. Psychoundakis is not an educated man but his writing is a joy to read. As you read the book you get the impression of sitting around the camp fire listening to one or other of your comrades regaling the group with stories of derring-do and high adventure. It is easy to forget that it was, literally, a matter of life or death and the chance of capture high. I think what impressed me the most was the lack of hatred, no yearning for revenge on the Germans. At the end of the war when the German garrison had surrendered they were luckly to have been spared their lives after the appalling and savage way they oppressed the Island. Had they been anywhere else but in the hands of the Cretans, a noble and proud race, I don't think many Germans would have left the island alive. This book is excellent, I strongly recommend it.