Frosinia

A splendid book, very recently recommended to us by an enlightened collector — unsurprisingly, given that he is himself a discerning photographer. In its day, the work was praised by one of the finest connoisseurs of its setting — Corfu — namely Albert Cohen: “Your Frosinia is a masterpiece, and I am filled with enthusiasm and wonder. It is a marvel that so brief a book should be so ample, with reverberations that reach far, attaining the universal. A marvel that, with its serene pace and deliberate stripping away of direct dialogue and scenes, it should be so alive, so gripping. A marvel that, meant to be sober and linear, it should be so rich, so laden with succulent reality. A marvel, this austere and pure tragedy. The grandeur of the old Man. The grandeur of these two deafnesses, these alternating silences. The grandeur of this struggle between what was and what is, between acceptance and refusal of injustice, between the truth of the past and the truth of destructive revolt […] one would have to quote every page of this prodigious book, which has bewitched me and continues to haunt me. I shall come to Paris soon to deliver the book I have just finished [Belle du Seigneur], and I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again.”

Anthony Hartley (1925–2000) was a British writer and critic, educated at the universities of Exeter and Oxford. He contributed for several years to The Spectator before continuing his career in New York.