Kassandra and the Wolf

"No retelling of Kassandra and the Wolf can explain its charm, or its riddles. ... [It] is one of those rare creations that come alive mysteriously, without any antecedents. The book is original, terrifying, complete. It invents its own history, eases in and out of nightmare as it mingles dream and fact. Kassandra and the Wolf is a short, muscular novel with an absolute sense of craft. ... The language throughout is merciless and crisp. ... [A] stunning achievement: a lovely, sinister book." --Jerome Charyn, New York Times Margarita Karapanou's Kassandra and the Wolf was first published in 1974, and went on to become a contemporary classic in Greece, receive international acclaim, and establish its 28-year-old author as an intensely original new talent, who garnered comparisons to Proust and Schulz. Six-year-old Kassandra is given a doll: "I put her to sleep in her box, but first I cut off her legs and arms so she'd fit," she tells us, "Later, I cut her head off too, so she wouldn't be so heavy. Now I love her very much." Kassandra is an unforgettable narrator, a perfect, brutal guide to childhood as we've never seen it--a journey that passes through the looking glass but finds the darkest corners of the real world. This edition brings Kassandra and the Wolf back into print at last--a tour de force and, as Karapanou liked to call it, a scary monster of a book.