Paxos Stories

The literature is limited. Here's one, Three go wild on Paxos

For me, the best two short stories about Paxos are Antonis Travlantonis' "The American's Christmas" (in Greek) and Russell Hoban's very short  "One Less Octopus at Paxos" (the latter was published in Granta magazine's first travel issue).

(As a complete digression, and an alternative viewpoint on the subject of octopus, here's Ikkyu's poem,

A Meal of Fresh Octopus:

Lots of arms, just like Kannon the Goddess;
Sacrificed for me, garnished with citron, I revere it so!
The taste of the sea, just divine!
Sorry, Buddha, this is another precept I just cannot keep.

From Wild Ways: Zen Poems of Ikkyu, tr. John Stevens,  Shambala , Boston, 1995 )

Paxos may not have a Theotokis or Papadiamantis, but when all's said and done, who is better qualified to write authentic stories of life on Paxos than the local mayor (also a poet), Spiros Bogdanos?

Here are two wonderful excerpts, one sample from each story (I Didimanes and I Depaina):

I shouldn't forget to mention the surprisingly readable "Passage to Paxos" by Anne Weale.