The Refugee Summer is set in a wealthy suburb of Athens during the summer of 1922. It was a summer of change, when political upheaval was prevalent and social changes were apparent. Greece was slowly changing, and the war in Turkish Anatolia was about to bring much disturbance and turmoil to Greece and its people.

The suburb of Kifissia, is faithfully described as the aristocratic summer retreat for the wealthy and the foreign. There was, as the narrator points out, nothing there for tourists to see, for it was filled with villa upon villa. For the child heroes of the novel, among its green leafy trees and holiday mansions, it looked like a great place for adventures, a place where they could run free in safety from the harsh reality of the world beyond. For the characters of The Refugee Summer, Kifissia was a place of freedom, a place...