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Literature

Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915-2011) War Hero and Writer


Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915-2011) was an intrepid traveller, a heroic soldier, and a writer with a unique prose style. He was widely regarded as Britain’s greatest living travel writer during his lifetime, based on books such as A Time of Gifts (1977). A BBC journalist once described him as a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene.

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After his stormy schooldays, followed by the walk across Europe to Constantinople that begins in A Time of Gifts (1977) and continues through Between the Woods and the Water (1986), he lived and traveled in the Balkans and the Greek Archipelago. His books Mani (1958) and Roumeli (1966) attest to his deep interest in languages and remote places.

In the Second World War he joined the Irish Guards, became a liaison officer in Albania, and fought in Greece and Crete. He was awarded the DSO and OBE.

He lived partly in Greece—in the house he designed with his wife, Joan, in an olive grove in the Mani—and partly in Worcestershire. He was knighted in 2004 for his services to literature and to British-Greek relations.

Patrick Leigh Fermor