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A Greek Tragedy
One Day, a Deadly Shipwreck, and the Human Cost of the Refugee Crisis
Table of Contents
About The Book
Five Days at Memorial meets Into the Raging Sea with this harrowing and moving true story of a devastating shipwreck during the biggest refugee crisis since World War II.
On October 28, 2015, a boat meant for only a few dozen passengers capsized off the coast of the Greek island of Lesvos. Hundreds of refugees, forced in desperation onto the overloaded boat manned by armed smugglers, were tossed into a roiling sea. The resulting loss of life, the largest in a single day during the crisis in the Aegean, shocked the world.
Now, after nearly a decade of research, interviews, and investigation, reporter Jeanne Carstensen has captured the dramatic twenty-four hours—including details of the refugees’ lives before they left their homes to the courageous rescue efforts of the Greek islanders and volunteers rushing to help, even as their government and the EU failed to act. Carstensen brilliantly showcases the extraordinary heroism of ordinary people in extreme circumstances.
In a world where forced migration is on the rise, A Greek Tragedy challenges us to confront our collective humanity. It’s an unforgettable testament of our times and a compassionate depiction of the lengths to which a person will go to save another human being.
On October 28, 2015, a boat meant for only a few dozen passengers capsized off the coast of the Greek island of Lesvos. Hundreds of refugees, forced in desperation onto the overloaded boat manned by armed smugglers, were tossed into a roiling sea. The resulting loss of life, the largest in a single day during the crisis in the Aegean, shocked the world.
Now, after nearly a decade of research, interviews, and investigation, reporter Jeanne Carstensen has captured the dramatic twenty-four hours—including details of the refugees’ lives before they left their homes to the courageous rescue efforts of the Greek islanders and volunteers rushing to help, even as their government and the EU failed to act. Carstensen brilliantly showcases the extraordinary heroism of ordinary people in extreme circumstances.
In a world where forced migration is on the rise, A Greek Tragedy challenges us to confront our collective humanity. It’s an unforgettable testament of our times and a compassionate depiction of the lengths to which a person will go to save another human being.
About The Author
Photograph by Marissa Leshnov
Jeanne Carstensen is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, Foreign Policy, and Salon and broadcast nationally on The World. She covered the Syrian refugee crisis in Greece and Turkey and has been awarded grants and fellowships from The Pulitzer Center, Logan Nonfiction Program, and Mesa Refuge, where she was the Peter Barnes Long-Form Journalism fellow. She lives in San Francisco.
Product Details
- Publisher: Atria/One Signal Publishers (March 25, 2025)
- Length: 288 pages
- ISBN13: 9781668083147
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Raves and Reviews
“Alternately in the news and ignored, the refugee crisis is a permanent, painful part of our era. Jeanne Carstensen reminds us that there are well over 100 million displaced people in the world. Through a deep look into one tragic shipwreck, she vividly brings alive survivors, victims and helpers in a way that stands for the larger tragedy of which this event was a part.”
—Adam Hochschild, bestselling author of King Leopold’s Ghost and American Midnight
“A Greek Tragedy is the gripping account of a horrid maritime disaster, a beguiling saga, and an unputdownable book. This is meticulously researched, masterful reporting."
—Rabih Alameddine, award-winning author of An Unnecessary Woman and The Wrong End of the Telescope
"Like any Greek tragedy, Jeanne Carstensen’s book puts us face to face with our mortal selves. And like any great Greek tragedy, it exposes to us the full spectrum of our humanness, in all of its ambition and love and generosity and apathy and greed: for it is not Olympian gods but the callous men and women in power at whose behest we live and die. At the time of the greatest human migration in recent history, A Greek Tragedy—tender, unsparing, meticulously researched—is an unparallelled chronicle."
—Anna Badkhen, author of Bright Unbearable Reality
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- Book Cover Image (jpg): A Greek Tragedy Hardcover 9781668083147
- Author Photo (jpg): Jeanne Carstensen Photograph by Marissa Leshnov(0.1 MB)
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