Victoria Hislop studied English Literature at Oxford University and afterwards worked in book publishing, PR and journalism. During her time as a journalist, she wrote on education and travel for national newspapers and magazines and was sent on assignments around the world. The Figurine will be published on 28th September 2023 and takes as its inspiration the dubious acquisition of cultural treasures and the price people – and countries – will pay to cling on to them. My story is set during the period of the Junta, an army dictatorship that committed many crimes, effectively robbing people of their lives and driving others into exile. To me there seemed to be a striking parallel. It tells the true story of a trawler, the Andrea Gail, which went out on a six-week trip to fish for tuna from Massachusetts and encountered a massive storm caused by the freak meeting of two weather fronts.

This cookie is stored by WPML WordPress plugin. The purpose of the cookie is to store the redirected language. Random reading recommendation: The Story: Love, Loss & The Lives of Women: 100 Great Short Stories edited by @VicHislop . A rich feast. Victoria Hislop’s collection of favourite short stories by other female writers, simply titled The Story has given me more pleasure this year than almost all the rest of my reading put together. Like a box of festive Quality Street, you can dip in and never be sure what you will encounter – it might be Virginia Woolf or Alice Munro, this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature winner. Hislop highlights some of the very best writing of the past 200 years, with topics that range far and wide, from humour to pathos, and politics to sex. Mariella Frostrup As well as studying the Greek language (it is her ultimate ambition to read everything and anything without the presence of a dictionary by her side), she spends her spare time reading, swimming, playing tennis and, these days, dancing (having been a contestant in Greece’s version of “Strictly” in 2021).Jules, Rebecca, Rachel and Emma chat with Victoria Hislop about her latest book, The Figurine. We also talk about Greece, archaeology, Strictly Come Dancing and book recommendations ... Read the full article Sometimes poignant but never upsetting, this book highlights the strength of love, friendship and resilience over adversity. Complemented wonderfully by Gill Smith’s beautiful illustrations, this is an ideal book for older early readers who are ready explore more complex themes associated such as coping with adversity and having respect for others who may be different from themselves. Her affection for the Mediterranean then took her to Spain, and in The Return she wrote about the painful secrets of its civil war. August 1957. The island of Spinalonga closes its leprosy colony. And a moment of violence has devastating consequences.

Victoria’s first book for children, Maria’s Island (listed by Waterstones as one of the best children’s books of the year) was also published in 2020 – and is an adaptation of The Island for a younger audience . The book is part of a two-book deal made in 2018 for UK and Commonwealth rights excluding Canada. Mari Evans, m.d., acquired from Jonathan Lloyd at Curtis Brown. It was this sense of the relentless power of the elements that overwhelmed me as I finished reading, and the almost callous way in which the crew were treated by the sea: “They didn’t die, they disappeared off the face of the earth.” The men may have vanished, but this book means that they will never be forgotten – and the memory of those hours when I read it remains a very sharp one. On a night in late October, with a howling gale outside, I sat down to read this book. Only when I closed it did I realise that the date on which the events took place exactly matched the date on which I was reading it. It was Halloween. The rest of the family was in the other room watching the television, but I decided to stay reading by our old metal stove that was useless for cooking, but good for “hugging” on cold nights. It seemed to me that this book was meant to be read on such a night: it was “The Perfect Book”.

Maria’s Island

Among the feelings of sorrow, separation and, at times desperation, there is happiness, hope and so much kindness. These are effortlessly woven into an absorbing, realistic and wonderful, wonderful story that must be shared. I adored this book. It is a real treasure. But please, have the box of tissues to hand. There will be tears, both of sadness and joy. In the aftermath, the question of how to resume life looms large. Stigma and scandal need to be confronted and somehow, for those impacted, a future built from the ruins of the past. The tale is narrated by Maria, one of the children in Hislop’s novel The Island, from which this engrossing yarn is skillfully adapted for younger readers.

If perfection exists in the form it comes from Alice Munro who proves herself worthy of her recent Nobel Prize. In “Miles City, Montana” and “Gravel”, Munro reveals the devastation caused by “all our natural, and particular, mistakes”. Victoria Hislop’s collection of favourite short stories by other female writers, simply titled The Story has given me more pleasure this year than almost all the rest of my reading put together. Like a box of festive Quality Street, you can dip in and never be sure what you will encounter – it might be Virginia Woolf or Alice Munro, this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature winner. Hislop highlights some of the very best writing of the past 200 years, with topics that range far and wide, from humour to pathos, and politics to sex. When time stops dead for Maria Petrakis and her sister, Anna, two families splinter apart and, for the people of Plaka, the closure of Spinalonga is forever coloured with tragedy. A delightful and original new book from multimillion-copy bestselling author Victoria Hislop, author of The Island and The Sunrise Those Who Are Loved, published in 2019, tells the story of Greece’s traumatic period of occupation and civil war during the 20 th century.

Victoria introduces Maria’s Island

Hislop’s love for Greece shines and transports readers through space and time to a brilliantly drawn world” Those Who Are Loved has been germinating for a decade now, from the moment I first saw the island of Makronisos from the Greek mainland. I was told it was uninhabited, but had been a prison camp for communists. The discovery compelled me to read about the Greek civil war (in which many women played a role), but of course it also meant researching the events that led to that conflict as well as the long-term after-effects that are still seen in Greece even today. Everyone knows how much I love Greece, but exploring this story has taken me to some new and disquieting places.”– Victoria Hislop