A stranger here

by Gillian Bouras

Three women of Greece: Artemis, an ailing matriarch who clings rigidly to the the old ways. Juliet, an Englishwoman contentedly married to a Greek man. And Irene, the Australian wife of Artemis's son, who has to leave her marriage and child, and a culture that will not make room for her. Irene cannot stay in Greece, neither can she properly leave. Wherever she goes a part of her is pulling in the other direction, so that no country can lay claim to her, no place is truly home.

Gillian Bouras has won acclaim as an interpreter of the migrant experience. A Stranger Here — a new departure for her as a writer — seamlessly weaves fact with fiction to widen her view on displacement, while her reflections on life are as astute and poignant and wryly funny as they always have been.

247 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an American expat living in Europe for most of my adult life, I LOVED this book. The complex, difficult to express as well as understand issues of displacement are explored beautifully and authentically here. I am not sure if people who haven't lived long periods in a different country will find this book as engaging, but for me, this book was as true and compelling as the most honest, profound conversations between close friends.
I would give the book five stars, but I found parts of the book a bit uninteresting, such as the letters between the protagonist and her family. More could have been done there, but overall I would recommend this book wholeheartedly and even look forward to reading it again myself.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gillian Bouras (b. 1945) is an expat Australian writer who fascinated us in the 1980s with her first book, the autobiographical A Foreign Wife, a story of reverse migration. As it says on her website:

She married George Bouras, a Greek emigrant to Australia, in 1969. In 1980 she went with her husband and her two sons to the Peloponnese area of Greece, initially for a six-month holiday but they ended up staying. She had her third son in Greece, and eventually took out Greek citizenship.

It is decades since I read A Foreign Wife (1986) but I remember its melancholy well.  It was such a contrast to the happy sun-drenched days on Corfu in Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals (1956) which I'd  read at school, and to the image of island life in Charmian Clift's books about her sojourn in Greece – Mermaid Singing (1954) and Peel Me a Lotus (1959).  We read Clift's books now with the knowledge of subsequent tragedy and we now notice the culture shock and the patriarchal society more, but at the time those books fed a fantasy of an idyllic island life, and were a boon to Greek tourism.

The honesty of A Foreign Wife showed a different side to the story. A story which expressed the feelings of countless women uprooted from where they belong by the assumption that they will follow the wants and needs of a husband.  A story which laid bare the different expectations for women who try to fit in and find that they can't do that while remaining true to themselves.

Bouras continued to explore the complexities of exile and cultural identity in her writing and in her novel A Stranger Here (1996) she uses three different voices to convey the judgement of three women. 

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/02/03/a...

[Jennifer Elliott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Published in 1996, this book gives us a view of the experience of being the stranger in a society, in this case of Greek village life from the perspective of an Australian woman, Gillian Bouras, who married a Greek man and moved from Melbourne, to a small village in Greece. It is the opposite refugee story in a way, from Australia to the traditional life of a small and unwelcoming village. Bouras initially bore and raised her older children in Melbourne, but moved to Greece, where she had another boy, then raised her three boys with their Yiayia and other family. 'Irene' is the main character who fights the closed nature of the small town mentality of the Greeks, Juliet is her sister in law, Artemis her mother in law who is nearing the end of her life and Irene's sons live a life between the two cultures. Her husband values his mother and Greek life in the village and tradition above his wife. Although his failings are only dealt with tangentially he is a disappointment to his wife who writes and lives another life through her letters.The loss of her mother who is in Australia underlies the problems she experiences. Sadly her Greek family know about the effect this has on her but have never reacted in a caring way and she is left grieving.
Gillain Bouras gives us a sense of what it is to be unable to accept a culture that rejects you as a person in your own right. There is an unnamed person who Irene loves but doesn't return her feelings and this character makes Irene choose to leave the village for London. This seems to enable her to feel an individual while she maintains a frequent correspondence to her youngest son. She also visits Greece periodically and has fond memories of her time there, albeit also recalling promotive living arrangements for someone from a first world country.
The trio of characters give us a variable position so we can see issues from different perspectives: the traditional from Artemis and the newcomer who accepts life with limitations in Juliet.
It's a difficult read as there is no happy ending for Irene but it is positive as she never gives up her ideal of a life that is real for her. She's a gritty character, if difficult to understand but strong and dedicated to her youngest son.
A good picture of the true difficulty in taking on a new culture and how this makes you a stranger to a previous life and the new one too

[Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

I decided to give up on this book after reading half of it. My point of view may be biased, but as an immigrant, I find it difficult to resonate with the author's feelings. Maybe it's because of the different times. Or maybe there is not much difference between where I came from and where I am now (such as the city vs. the countryside). I think the author was more shocked by the cultural differences and the lack of support from his lover.