Les Plus Beaux Contes De Grèce

by Menelaos Stephanides

Deux tomes, douze contes, soigneusement choisis parmi le trésor de la tradition grecque, des pages qui font vivre nymphes, sorcières, dragons, animaux fabuleux, à travers quantités d'aventures pleines d'héroïsmes, d'amours et de faiblesses humaines. Ces histoires fantastiques qui se déroulent sur toile de fond méditerranéenne, ont pour décor la terre de Grèce, sa lumière, ses arômes, ses accents riches et variés. Elles sont arrivés jusqu'à nous par la voix du récit et charment encore les oreilles des petits et des grands comme à l'époque où elles se mettaient du merveilleux lors des longues soirées d'hiver et des veillées étoilées des douces nuit d'été. A la fin de chaque tome se trouve incorporé un conte poétique, deux exemples caractéristiques de la poésie populaire grecque. Le texte de ces ouvrages est enrichi des talentueuses illustrations à l'encre de Chine de Photini Stéphanidi.

Genres: Fiction

189 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2010

About the author

Menelaos Stephanides, the author of ‘Greek Mythology’, originally studied economics in Athens but his main preoccupation was writing.

For more than twenty-five years he concentrated, with great success, on the retelling of ancient Greek myths, tirelessly studying the source materials to achieve his literary version of the many stories. Working with his brother, the artist and illustrator Yannis Stephanides, he wrote and published the 18-volume series ‘Greek Mythology’ for children, which was translated into several languages and later reissued as a pocket book for older readers. He then turned his attention to more recent Greek tradition, studying hundreds of folk tales the most appealing of which he retold in the highly successful 10-volume series ‘Folk Tales from Greece’.

Menelaos Stephanides’ name is now familiar in many parts of the world, thanks to the translation of both his mythology and the folk tales into several foreign languages. In 1989 his book ‘Jason and the Argonauts’ was awarded two Pier Paolo Vergerio honourable distinctions by the University of Padua, while in 1998 his entire published work was recommended by the Hellenic Ministry of Education for inclusion in school libraries, having already long been recognised as a source of reference for publishers, the reading public and educationalists.

Reviews

[Rine Bekkelund · Rating 5 out of 5]

Er vsnskelig å rate folkeeventyr liksom, mem som en kulturinnsiktsting 5 av 5

[Micah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Spoiler: almost all of these little stories had pleasant endings which felt like a nice deviation from the norm. I will say forgot how weird old country misogyny is, (the first one is especially gross), maybe half the stories had women in highly compromising situations, but all the stories also had the pacing and repetition of a folk-tale which I enjoy and would seek out the rest of the set. Overall a nice little read while traveling in Greece.