Kay, Adam

I can recall precisely where I was when Daphnis and Chloe opened in my hands like a flower: sitting on my father’s couch, my back to the window and the sun all around. Suddenly I felt the force of a wholly new, an important idea, something I had never considered quite that way before. I closed the book and, somewhat ridiculously, looked at its cover. My Penguin edition of Daphnis and Chloe was blurbed by Goethe: ‘One would do well to read it every year, to be instructed by it again and again, and to receive anew the impression of its great beauty.’