Finding Callidora

By (author): Stella Leventoyannis Harvey

A horrific betrayal sets the destiny of the Alevizopoulos family, farmers who dare to choose a side, first in the Great War of 1914-1918, then in the Greco-Turkish war of 1919-1922. Theodore, the patriarch, was given a significant plot of fertile farmland in the Peloponnese for his efforts to fight the Ottomans in the Cretan revolution of 1886-1896. After he dies, it is Callidora, the matriarch, who must protect this legacy, raising her children to ensure the land is passed down from one generation to the next. But will the treacherous schemes of a neighbour ever allow this to happen? Survival might mean leaving what is most precious: home.

Finding Callidora unfolds against multiple backdrops?the unforgiving terrain of the Anatolia, the isolated Greek islands of Naxos and Crete, the bustling, chaotic streets of Cairo and later the vast expanse of Canada. Reflecting the headlines of the day, the novel follows four generations of the Alevizopoulos family, starting with Callidora?s children, Nikos, Vasilis and Katarina. Each will carry and pass on the scars of the original betrayal and their need to find the place where they belong.

AUTHOR

Stella Leventoyannis Harvey

Stella Leventoyannis Harvey is a fiction writer whose short stories have been short listed in contests such as the Writers Union short fiction contest. Her stories have appeared in The Literary Leanings Anthology, The New Orphic Review, Emerge Magazine, The Question and The Dalhousie Review. Her non-fiction has appeared in Pique Newsmagazine and the Globe and Mail. She has completed drafts of two novels and a collection of short fiction. A social worker by training, she ran a management consulting practice in Canada and abroad. She was born in Cairo, Egypt and moved to Calgary, Alberta as a child with her family. Much of her family still lives in Greece, where she visits often, indulging her love of Greek food and culture and honing her fluency in the language.