How familiar is the place we know? Is its selection incidental in a literary work? How did the prose writers of the 19th century approach urban and rural topographies?

This book examines texts by several key prose authors of the 19th and early 20th centuries, including Vizyenos, Psycharis, Eftaliotis, Karkavitsas, and Papadiamantis, through the theoretical lens of cultural studies.

‘The Narratives of Place’ explore the construction of place not simply as a real space with its defining points and symbols, but primarily as a substitute for the lack created by the nostalgia for the real, as a construction of a cultural vision and as a field of inquiry for all the contentious points that shape the sense of community, the sense of 'belonging' or conversely, alienation.

Intertwined with historical developments, with individual or social actions, a place is always a central concept in the formation of identities, and it is this particular connection between identity and place that forms the core of the studies in this book.

[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]