The Colossus of Maroussi

By Henry Miller

Categories: Biographies & Memoirs, Travel

The Colossus of Maroussi (1941) is Henry Miller's travel memoir of the months he spent in Greece in 1939, as the Second World War was beginning. Invited by his friend Lawrence Durrell, Miller travels around Athens, the islands and the Peloponnese, visiting ancient sites such as Mycenae, Epidaurus and Knossos. At its center is his portrait of the poet and storyteller George Katsimbalis, the colossus of the title, and the book is as much about Miller's own sense of renewal as about the country.

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• Ryan Holiday: “Henry Miller, the novelist... wrote like one of the greatest travel books of all time. And this is this sort of rhapsodic, beautiful book about traveling through Greece as World War II is breaking out.”