American Ikaros

A chance encounter in a small cafeneion on a remote Greek island led Roger Jinkinson on a quest to find out what had happened to Kevin Andrews, the author of The Flight of Ikaros, described by Patrick Leigh Fermor as “One of the great and lasting books about Greece.” The search for Kevin Andrews covers half the globe and contains a glittering array of characters including W H Auden, Louis MacNeice, Dylan Thomas, Patrick Leigh Fermor, E E Cummings, Scofield Thayer, Amelia Earhart, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany and Queen Frederika of Greece. Kevin was born in Peking in 1924. His mother, Yvette Borup, beautiful and spirited was married at the time to the adventurer and explorer Roy Chapman Andrews, reputed to be the model for Indiana Jones, but he is unlikely to have been Kevin's father. Gifted with good looks, an abundance of charm and natural intelligence, Kevin grew to be a confused and troubled man. His one constant love was Greece and the Greeks. He relinquished his American nationality and became a Greek citizen in 1975. The last few years of his life were spent in Athens living as a recluse. He died in 1989, swimming in wild seas off the Greek island of Kythira. Read more