Summary of Fear of Barbarians
“Fear of Barbarians” is a novella centred around two women, Oksana and Penelope, in a village on Gavdos, an island south of Crete. Oksana, who came to Gavdos from Ukraine to recover from an illness following the Chernobyl meltdown, finds the remote Greek Island like a dream. For Penelope, who grew up on the island, it feels more like a prison.
Reasons to read Fear of Barbarians
“Fear of Barbarians” is a short novella that explores themes such as the condition of being a foreigner and the position of women in patriarchal societies. The title is derived from a poem by the Greek poet C.P. Cavafy. Petar Andonovski is a North-Macedonian writer. He won the North-Macedonian National Novel of the Year Award in 2015 for his novel “The Body One Must Live In”. “Fear of Barbarians” received the European Union Prize for Literature in 2020.
Original title: Страв од варвари
Year of publication: 2018
Nr of pages: 90
