“Today is a very important day because, for many years, I have loved Greece. It is no secret that I love the people, the landscape, the culture, all that… Thank you very much for the great honor today,” Victoria Hislop said after her swearing-in before the general secretary of Citizenship, Athanasios Balerbas.

She was granted honorary Greek citizenship on September 17 in a ceremony that took place in Athens.

After the ceremony, Balerbas offered Hislop a sculpture composition from the Benaki Museum.

Earlier this summer, the British writer was named an honorary Greek by decree of President Katerina Sakellaropoulou, “for her important services toward Greece, for the international exposure she gave to the historic site of Spinalonga and her promotion of modern Greek culture and history.”

The author is widely known for her best-seller book The Island, which was first published in 2005.

In Greece, the book was adapted to a very successful TV drama series, making it the most expensive local television production of all time, in 2010.

Hislop has also written The Return (2008), The Thread (2011), The Sunrise (2014), La Ville Orpheline (2015), Cartes Postales from Greece (2016) and Those Who Are Loved (2019).

This article was first published on ekathimerini.gr