Wednesday 6 July 2016

Souvenirs of the Lawrence Durrell Conference at Rethymnon

The Venetian Harbour at Rethymnon.
The most recent Lawrence Durrell conference was held at the Rethymnon campus of the University of Crete in the hills above the town, whereas the participants accommodated themselves down below, some in the new quarters of Rethymnon along the beachfront, others like myself in the old Venetian town which has been somewhat overlayed by Ottoman features.

A street through the old town.
The interior courtyard of a Veneitan house.
In the heat of the day.






A Ventian fountain abutted by an Ottoman vault.
The conference was organised by Anna Lillios, professor of English at the University of Central Florida.  She herself comes from Crete.

Among the people I met up with again at Rethymnon was Ian MacNiven, who edited The Durrell-Miller Letters which I co-published with Faber and Faber in 1988.

Ian MacNiven with his wife Peggy Fox of New Directions, New York. The speaker is Linda Rashidi, professor of linguistics at Mansfield University, the outgoing president of the International Lawrence Durrell Society.
My hardback copy of The Durrell-Miller Letters.  I found the cover photograph in a shoebox at Durrell's house in Sommieres.
Eve Durrell thought she ought to add herself to the correspondence with this inscription in my paperback copy.
A night street in the old Venetian quarter of Rethymnon.