The Colossus of Decatur Street

At least two generations have passed since Henry Miller raised some dust and threw it in the eye of the Establishment with his no-holds-barred attitude to writing and living. There really had not been anything quite like Tropic of Cancer when it was published in a clandestine way in 1934. But it wasn’t until the relaxation of censorship, and the advent of the hippy culture of the late sixties, that Miller’s outlook on life was fully absorbed into the wider culture. Raised on Decatur Street in Brooklyn, Miller had to suffer and grow far beyond his roots in order to find expression for his inner turmoil. He finally began to exorcise his demons at the end of a decade-long sojourn in France. He visited his friend and fellow-writer Lawrence Durrell in Corfu just before the outbreak of war and penned the most marvellous travelogue of his time in Greece: The Colossus of Maroussi. The world was careening like a drunk driver towards catastrophe, but Miller was with the ancient gods to produce a fervent book about the pagan spirit of Greece. If you’ve never read a word of Miller, pick up The Colussus and be transported to another world.

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