Endless Samothraki Summers

Samothraki is one of my favourite places in the world. It’s a small volcanic island on the Greek side of the border with Türkiye, famed for its waterfalls, the Winged Victory and historic legacy. In Ancient Greek times, the island was known for its religious ceremonies called “The Samothraki Mysteries”. Today, the island is largely untouched by Western European tourists and is primarily populated by old Greek men gossiping over frappés and long-haired, free-loving hippies drawn by the spiritual nature and wild camping. I’ve been coming here since I was 18 and keep finding myself pulled back. 

This week in Samothraki, I’m reading Margarita Liberaki’s Three Summers. Liberaki’s post-war novel deals with the plight of three sisters on the irreversible brink of womanhood as they navigate first love, heartbreak and coming to terms with their destiny against the backdrop of idyllic Greek countryside. Three Summers was one of Camus’ favourite books and he once said: “The sun has disappeared from books these days…Liberaki is one of those who can pass it on.” 

The prose is infused with images of budding sexuality. Liberaki writes: “The lavender bloomed. It happened suddenly one morning. The evening before we had stroked the buds, which were still green and hard.” Such life-affirming images are succeeded with allusions to death- “White newborn butterflies fluttering around, chasing each other, making love, only to die the same day.” Through her vibrant imagery, Liberaki captures the intensity of a young woman’s anxieties over life and death as she prepares to climb out of the safe burrow forever. 

Samothraki too is embedded with scenes of life and death. The volcanic island rises up to an ominous 1,600m above sea level and olive trees proliferate the fertile soil. Young goats run carelessly over craggy hilltops before being presented posthumously to salivating tourists. Its best-known waterfall Fonias means “murderer” in Greek, although the constant stream of water couldn’t be a clearer sign of life. 

Liberaki’s narrator Katerina, the youngest and most curious of the sisters, is a wonderful character who paints the world so tenderly through her open-minded, questioning and sympathetic perspective. She is hungry to experience life, but also aware of its dangers, telling the reader “Something wasn’t enough in life, and something was too much, overflowing.” Ultimately, she turns down the proposal from the man she’d spent the past few years idolising and decides to break away from the conventional route of marriage to travel the world.

When I first came to Samothraki I was 18, the same age as Katerina at the end of the novel. Like her, I definitely felt as though “something wasn’t enough”, but I was unsure exactly what. I traveled to Samothraki with two school friends. On the island, we met worldly Greeks who would impart words of wisdom, slightly older students who confidently climbed the waterfalls and dived in nude, and we lay on the beach chatting about our futures under the stars. By the end of the summer, I turned down my university place and like Katerina, I set off to explore the world.