Anabasis: A Journey to the Interior

by Ellen Gilchrist

Overview

"Gilchrist's youthful enthusiasm for her heroine is evident throughout this appealing short novel, which should interest both adult and young adult readers." —Starr E. Smith, Library Journal

Born into slavery, but taken on as an apprentice to the gentle genius Philokrates as a child, Auria has only known a life of wonder and kindness. A fount of knowledge and philosophy, Philokrates has spent the last few years teaching Auria all that he can about healing, nature, politics, geography and human nature.

If only he had more time.

When Philokrates succumbs to old age and passes away, Auria's devastation is all-encompassing. Alone in the world, more aware than ever that she is a slave and fated to a life of servitude, she refuses to leave her deceased mentor's side. But when she is called to help deliver a neighboring woman's child and discovers that, fifth in a line of only daughters, the baby is to be abandoned, Auria begins a journey that will change her life forever.

Rescuing the girl, Auria leaves her town forever, determined to raise her on her own, and discovers a rebellion whose mission is to end slavery in Greece once and for all. Having found her own freedom, will Auria risk all that she has gained to free others?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781635761504
Publisher:	Diversion Books
Publication date:	08/08/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	839 KB

About the Author

Ellen Gilchrist (1935-2024) was author of several collections of short stories and novellas including The Cabal and Other Stories, Flights of Angels, The Age of Miracles, The Courts of Love, In the Land of Dreamy Dreams, Victory Over Japan (winner of the National Book Award), Drunk With Love, and I Cannot Get You Close Enough. She also wrote several novels, including The Anna Papers, Net of Jewels, Starcarbon, and Sarah Conley.

Editorial Reviews

National Book Award winner Gilchrist (Victory over Japan; Star Carbon) lifts her literary gaze from the exploits of the Hand family to produce this richly textured but overly idealized historical novel. During the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) between Athens and Sparta, Auria, a runaway slave girl, transforms herself into a warrior, healer, lyceum teacher, painter, ceramist, poet, songwriter and fiercely loving adoptive mother of an infant girl whom she rescues from a cave. Escaping her callous master, Auria teams up with a band of exiles and runaway slaves plotting rebellion in a mountain fortress, where she eventually marries Pericles's grandnephew Meion. Though representative of Gilchrist's assertive, independent heroines, Auria is neither fully realized nor wholly credible. A larger-than-life quality unsettles the story, even though Gilchrist ably evokes a Greece roiled by war, plagues and injustice as she touches, sometimes too heavily, on such themes as women's sexual and social subservience. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

National Book Award winner Gilchrist is best known for fiction depicting modern Southern lives (e.g., In the Land of Dreamy Dreams, LJ 10/15/81), but here she departs from that setting dramatically. In her "Author's Note," Gilchrist explains how as a child, inspired by her mother's renderings of classical history and myth, she first imagined this story of a literate slave girl in ancient Greece. Intelligent and inquiring, Auria is raised as the apprentice of renowned healer-philosopher Philokrates. After his death, the teenager escapes from their villa, taking with her an unwanted baby girl exposed to die, a goat, and a dog. The companions travel into the wild mountains, depending on Auria's skills and bravery for survival. When they join a group of antislavery rebels allied with the dying hero Pericles, Auria finds true love and the self-knowledge to help her withstand tremendous challenges to spirit and body. Gilchrist's youthful enthusiasm for her heroine is evident throughout this appealing short novel, which should interest both adult and young adult readers. Recommended for public library fiction collections.-Starr E. Smith, Fairfax Cty. P.L., Va.

Library Journal

Gilchrist's lyrical new novel is quite a departure for the National Book Award winner. In ancient Greece, at the time when Pericles ruled Athens and Sparta's warriors presented a formidable threat to the status quo, a slave girl named Auria has the good fortune to be apprenticed to a learned herbalist, Philokrates. This volatile age, fraught with danger, is the setting for Auria's escape. When the beloved old man dies, Auria rescues an infant that has been cast out by its parents to die and finds her way to freedom. It is a resilient spirit that leads Auria to overcome all obstacles on a treacherous journey into the mountains. This uplifting tale of a valiant young woman is rich in historical nuance, but should have broad appeal to fans of Gilchrist's fiction.

Alice Joyce