Mani

Travels in the Southern Peloponnese

By Patrick Leigh Fermor
Introduction by Michael Gorra

The Mani, at the tip of Greece's—and Europe's—southernmost promontory, is one of the most isolated regions of the world. Cut off from the rest of the country by the towering range of the Taygetus and hemmed in by the Aegean and Ionian seas, it is a land where the past is still very much a part of its people's daily lives.

Patrick Leigh Fermor, who has been described as "a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond, and Graham Greene," bridges the genres of adventure story, travel writing, and memoir to reveal an ancient world living alongside the twentieth century. Here, in the book that confirmed his reputation as one of the English language's finest writers of prose, Patrick Leigh Fermor carries the reader with him on his journeys among the Greeks of the mountains, exploring their history and time-honored lore.

Mani is a companion volume to Patrick Leigh Fermor's celebrated Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece.

Reviews

There probably is no better book ever written about the region and…no more affectionate and learned portrait ever drawn of a country and its people. The author's special personality and talent show through on every page.
— Washington Times

Patrick Leigh Fermor has written great travel books besides Roumeli and Mani, but I like to think that his extraordinary style is especially well suited to the subject of Greece, that the beautiful cragginess and almost blinding brilliance of his prose correspond particularly to that country's rugged, dazzled landscapes. Here Fermor establishes an ideal of travel writing: no one responds to a people and a place with more erudition and sensitivity.
— Benjamin Kunkel

One of the greatest travel writers of all time.
— Anthony Sattin, The Sunday Times

A unique mixture of hero, historian, traveler and writer; the last and the greatest of a generation whose like we won't see again. Bringing the landscape alive as no other writer can, he uses his profound and eclectic understanding of cultures and peoples, their origins and current place in the world, to paint vivid pictures—nobody has illuminated the geography of Europe better through literature. Everything is grist to his mill; nothing is ever banal. He expects much of his readers and we're kept on our toes, constantly reaching for the dictionary or Brewer's….[Leigh Fermor] has always appeared larger than life, both in his personality and in his relatively rare and carefully honed writing….a heartfelt wanderer truly involved in mankind….And those of us who read his dispatches home—those calm, intelligent tales of lives lived elsewhere—are in his debt.
— Robin Hanbury-Tenison, Geographical

There is only one complaint I can think of making about Patrick Leigh Fermor's books: They appear too seldom. When they do appear, they offer that kindest of pleasures open to a reviewer—the chance of unqualified praise.
— The New York Times

Also see:

A Time of Gifts By Patrick Leigh Fermor Introduction by Jan Morris At once a memoir of coming-of-age, an account of a journey, and a dazzling exposition of the English language, A Time of Gifts is also a portrait of a continent already showing ominous signs of the holocaust to come.

Between the Woods and the Water By Patrick Leigh Fermor Introduction by Jan Morris Continuing the epic foot journey across Europe begun in A Time of Gifts.

Roumeli By Patrick Leigh Fermor Introduction by Patricia Storace Travel writing's very own "cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond, and Graham Greene" explores northern Greece.

A Time to Keep Silence By Patrick Leigh Fermor Introduction by Karen Armstrong Patrick Leigh Fermor, considered by many to be the greatest living travel writer, chronicles his sojourns at some of Europe's oldest and most celebrated monasteries in this meditation on the meaning of silence and solitude in modern life.

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