The Ingenious Language: Nine Epic Reasons to Love Greek

For word nerds, language loons, and grammar geeks, an impassioned and informative literary leap into the wonders of the Greek language. Here are nine ways Greek can transform your relationship to time and to those around you, nine reflections on the language of Sappho, Plato, and Thucydides, and its relevance to our lives today, nine chapters that will leave readers with a new passion for a very old language, nine epic reasons to love Greek.

The Ingenious Language is a love song dedicated to the language of history’s greatest poets, philosophers, adventurers, lovers, adulterers, and generals. Greek, as Marcolongo explains in her buoyant and entertaining prose, is unsurpassed in its beauty and expressivity, but it can also offer us a way seeing the world and our place in it in new ways. She takes readers on an astonishing journey, at the end of which, while it may still be Greek to you, you’ll have nine reasons to be glad it is.

No batteries or prior knowledge of Greek required!

“Andrea Marcolongo is today’s Montaigne.”—Andre Aciman, author of Call Me by Your Name

“Fascinating. Marcolongo transforms nine linguistic peculiarities into existential questions.”—La Stampa

“Extraordinary and absolutely original […] with a little ancient Greek, life is more exciting, colorful, and attractive.”—Italian Association for Classic Culture