Data from the Decade of the Sixties

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In this award-winning novel, Thanassis Valtinos weaves a striking narrative, juxtaposing individual voices, stories, and news clips to highlight the clash of past and present Greek culture during a time of unprecedented transformation in the country's politics, economy, and mores. These changes include a shift from monarchy to republic (via dictatorship), from an agricultural to an industrial society, and from arranged to love-based marriages.The multiple voices of this impressive chronicle coalesce in a series of fictional documents, ranging from personal correspondence between friends and family members to news reports and advertisements. The reader is privy to letters of lovelorn youth begging for guidance from a radio advice guru as well as the cumbersome written attempts of uneducated and underprivileged Greeks as they apply in droves to emigrate. As governments fall, sexologists, fortune-tellers, garage owners, and lonely matrons advertise their specialties and needs in want ads, while the young and resigned cling to the cheap novels, movies, and gossip columns that are the foundation of their barren existences.Together these fictional testimonies reveal the conflicting worlds of the 1960s, when generations and values collided as portions of society struggled to adapt while others chose to stagnate. In this stirring and touching novel, Valtinos probes the pulse of a decade, unearthing the spirit of the century, not only in Greece but throughout the world. These pages speak to anyone wishing to witness the epic of an age in the making.