Interviews

GREEK CITY TIMES

https://greekcitytimes.com/2025/10/09/author-kathryn-gauci-an-aegean-odyssey/

Last month, USA Today Bestselling Author Kathryn Gauci released her 15^th book and first memoir. An Aegean Odyssey: A Memoir follows her return to Greece in 2005. She’d lived there in the 1970s and visited occasionally. But this trip was about more than returning to her favorite places. It was about chasing a dream to become a writer……

HELLENIC DAILY NEWS NY

https://www.hellenicdailynewsny.com/en-us/good-living/art-cultureus/an-aegean-odyssey-a-memoir-by-usa-today-bestselling-author-kathryn-gauci

An Aegean Odyssey: A Memoir

Meet Author Kathryn Gauci

An Aegean Odyssey

hthttps://honorarygreek.com/2025/09/25/an-aegean-odyssey/

https://honorarygreek.com/2025/10/07/memory-jogging/

I’m currently reading Kathryn Gauci’s enchanting book about her odyssey in the Aegean around twenty years ago. She travelled alone around much of the Aegean in 2005, the very year, by sheer coincidence, that my wife and I moved from the UK to live permanently in Greece. I’m currently around 40% of the way through this arresting account and I have to say that so far it’s grabbed hold of my soul and sent me down all kinds of memory lanes. Kathryn’s prose is erudite, without being pretentious. She enfolds the reader in her own experience effortlessly and the wonder of what she sees and hears during her travels and how these things affect her seeps into your head and plucks at your heartstrings……

THE NATIONAL HERALD

https://www.thenationalherald.com/kathryn-gauci-shares-her-memoir-an-aegean-odyssey/?fbclid=IwY2xjawNX5hpleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHomZlxoXTM9lQTzzEYRWqabajHNe_mc5DEuCYBfkAGaf2zS3mIst8oiYoFm0_aem_c_2cDZ39NLW1ui1bausRwg

A well-written memoir can transport the reader to far away places and specific time periods in much the same way that well-written novels do. ‘An Aegean Odyssey’ by Kathryn Gauci is one such memoir, recounting her personal experiences while also highlighting the culture, history, food, and people of Greece.

After more than 30 years as a successful carpet and textile designer, Gauci decided it was time for a change; she wanted to become an author, and the first place she turned for inspiration was Greece, where she had worked as a carpet designer in Athens in the 1970s.

With no idea of what she would write about, she took two months off and returned in 2005 in search of a new adventure. All she knew was that she wanted to find the old Greece that was quickly disappearing through modernization and tourism. It was a great leap of faith to make this change in mid-life, yet not being one to miss an opportunity, she packed her bags and set out alone, hoping to discover the beauty and rich tapestry of characters that had inspired such great writers of the past – Nikos Kazantzakis, Lord Byron, Henry Miller, Patrick Leigh Fermor, Odysseus Elytis, and Homer himself.

https://katerinaskouzina.com/blog/an-interview-with-kathryn-gauci-author-of-the-embroiderer.html

We at Odyssey love good books about Greece. On today’s blog we interview Kathryn Gauci, the English author of the wonderful book The Embroiderer. Before she became a full-time writer, Kathryn ran her own textile design studio in Melbourne. We talk about her historical novel, the culinary side of Greece and Turkey and the relationship between the 2 countries.

The Embroiderer

The Embroiderer takes you through several important moments in history, described with such precise detail that you feel you were there. It intertwines one of the bloodiest massacres of the Greek War of Independence on the island of Chios (1822), the time in Constantinople around the Balkan Wars (1912-13), the Smyrna Catastrophe in Asia Minor (1922-23) and finally WW II (1939-45). Throughout the book, the relationship between Greece and Turkey is a central theme.

The story is told through 3 generations of brave woman (Dimitra, Sophia and Nina) who you cannot help but love, because of the heartbreak they endure during these harsh times in history. It begins in 1972, when Sophia’s grand-daughter Eleni is called from London to Athens by her dying aunt, and discovers the shocking past of her ancestors: a past full of political intrigue, secret societies and espionage. The dominant passion in the lives of these 3 women was embroidery, which all began with Dimitra’s work for the elite of the Ottoman society.

Smyrna Catastrophe

After WW I, the Ottoman Empire collapsed. The Greek Army occupied Smyrna in 1919 with the aim of taking back the land they believed rightfully belonged to them before 1453. Led by Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk), the Turks retaliated. After the Great Fire of Smyrna in September 1922 when most of the city was razed to the ground, and the population exchange six months later, more than 11/2 million Greeks fled to Greece. It was a disaster beyond belief.

https://www.facebook.com/151045561623384/videos/336643381274367

Threads of Life: Greek Textiles Through the Centuries | Seminars 2021

Presenter: Kathryn Gauci

Seminar Synopsis:

From the Minoans to Modern Greece, textiles in all forms, from cloth manufacture, costume, home textiles, and embroidery, have played a vital role in Greek society. During this presentation, the major influences that have affected the changes through the centuries, from war to social changes, to the influx of the Asia Minor Greeks after the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922 will be explored.

The way Greek culture, particularly Classical Greece, has impacted other European countries will also be examined. The influence of Greek sculptural ideals are well-known, and the important archeological discoveries of the mid-late 19th Century led to the revival of Classicism, which was a major influence, not only decorative style and fashion, but on health too. A few years later, 20th Century fashion designers such as Mariano Fortuny and Madame Grès, took on these Grecian aesthetic ideals with its freedom of movement with gusto.

Bio:

Kathryn Gauci was born in Leicestershire, England, and studied textile design at Loughborough College of Art and later at Kidderminster College of Art and Design, specialising in carpet design and technology. After graduating, Kathryn moved to Greece where she worked as a carpet designer in Athens for six years. She later moved to Melbourne and ran her own textile design studio for over fifteen years; work which she enjoyed tremendously as it allowed her the luxury of travelling worldwide, often taking her off the beaten track and exploring other cultures. Kathryn is now a full-time author of Historical Fiction and has written five books set in Greece. The Embroiderer is her first novel; a culmination of those wonderful years of design and travel, and especially of those glorious years in her youth living and working in Greece – a place that she is proud to call her spiritual home. It has also been translated into Greek – Η κεντήστρα της Σμύρνης