The Cretan Runner: His Story of the German Occupation, Psychoundakis, George. Published by The Folio Society, London, 2009. Translation and introduction by Patrick Leigh Fermor. Annotated by Fermor and Xan Fielding. 8vo up to 9½” tall., 221pp., with portrait frontispiece, and black and white plates. Decorative cloth boards, mapped endpapers. Housed in a green slipcase. In fine, unread condition.
George Psychoundakis was a twenty-one-year-old shepherd from the village of Asi Gonia when Crete fell to the Germans in May 1941. So began the Cretan Resistance and the young shepherd’s career as a wartime runner. In this unique account of the Resistance, Psychoundakis records the daily life of his fellow Cretans, his treacherous journeys on foot from the eastern White Mountains to the western slopes of Mount Ida to transmit messages and transport goods, and his enduring friendships with British officers (like his eventual translator Patrick Leigh Fermor) whose missions he helped to carry out with unflagging courage, energy, and good humor.
