JUSTINE

In the first book of Durrell s Alexandria Quartet, the story of the mysterious and charismatic Justine is told by her lover, an impoverished Irish teacher who has sought refuge across the Mediterranean in Greece. It is a love story, but the real heroine of the book is its setting: the city of Alexandria, with a sky of hot nude pearl and a thousand streets below, crowded, sensual and exotic; a complex and heady mix of elegance and poverty.