The Long Reckoning: Poems of Greece Since Independence (Paperback or Softback)

Two centuries of Greek history—war, division, dictatorship, and the struggle for democracy.

The Long Reckoning traces the turbulent path of Greece since independence through a sequence of poems that confront the nation’s defining trials.

From the fragile early years of the modern state to the crises of the twentieth century and beyond, these poems move through the events that shaped Greece: the national schism, wars of expansion and catastrophe, occupation and resistance during the Second World War, the Greek Civil War, and the long shadow of military dictatorship.

In 1974, with the collapse of the junta and the rejection of the monarchy, Greece chose its own constitutional path as a democratic republic. Yet new challenges followed, including political instability and the pressures of economic crisis.

Alongside these upheavals stand the voices of Greece’s great cultural witnesses—poets, musicians, and artists whose work carried memory and conscience through years of conflict and change.

Written in lyrical prose and narrative poetry, The Long Reckoning blends history and reflection to explore how a society confronts its past, and how the pursuit of freedom continues across generations.

Together with A Dream Forged in Fire: Poems of the Greek War of Independence and Later Struggles for Freedom, this book forms part of the Greek Continuum—a wider poetic chronicle of Greece’s modern history. Published by Kolonna Press.