Critics' Opinion:
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Published Feb 2015
320 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
In 1948, the body of an American journalist is found floating in the bay off Thessaloniki. A Greek journalist is tried and convicted for the murder ... but when he's released twelve years later, he claims his confession was the result of torture.
Flash forward to modern day Greece, where a young, disaffected high school student is given an assignment for a school project: find the truth.
Based on the real story of famed CBS reporter George Polk - journalism's prestigious Polk Awards were named after him - who was investigating embezzlement of U.S. aid by the right-wing Greek government, Nikolaidou's novel is a sweeping saga that brings together the Greece of the post-war period with the current era, where the country finds itself facing turbulent political times once again.
Told by key players in the story - the dashing journalist's Greek widow; the mother and sisters of the convicted man; the brutal Thessaloniki Chief of Police; a U.S. Foreign Office investigator - it is the modern-day student who is most affecting of them all, as he questions truth, justice and sacrifice… and how the past is always with us.
"An ennui-addled high school student investigates a decades-old murder mystery in this funny, heartfelt, and intellectually potent novel." - Publishers Weekly
"Told from various perspectives, the narratives intertwine: Minas gropes his way toward adulthood, and readers are invited to grapple with messy questions of historical truth and moral ambiguity. In the end, this mixture of history and fiction is both sweet and unsettling." - Booklist
"This gripping novel explores the themes of deceit, injustice, and the illusive search for truth while engaging the reader with a story about young people in Greece today." - Library Journal
"More context would have helped international readers understand the Greek civil war and the country's education system; without it, it's harder to appreciate this carefully orchestrated tale of political expediency. " - Kirkus
"The book, with strong writing and the well-orchestrated voices of its many characters, dares to suggest correlations with the current Greek crisis." - Ethnos
"Moves deftly from the historic to the present day." - Athens News Agency
This information about The Scapegoat was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Sofia Nikolaidou was born in Thessalonika in 1968. She teaches literature and creative writing and writes criticism for various newspapers, including Ta Nea. She has published two collections of short stories and three novels, all of which have been translated into eight languages. Her last novel, Tonight We Have Friends, won the 2011 Athens Prize for Literature, and The Scapegoat was shortlisted for the 2012 Greek State Prize for Fiction.
Karen Emmerich's translations include Rien ne va plus by Margarita Karapanou, Landscape with Dog and Other Stories by Ersi Sotiropoulos, I'd Like by Amanda Michalopoulou, and Poems (1945-1971) by Miltos Sachtouris. She received the 2013 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation for her translation, with Edmund Keeley, of Yannis Ritsos' Diaries of Exile.
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