Half the Perfect World is an account of the expatriate artist
community on the Greek island of Hydra from 1955 to 1964. Fostered by
celebrated Australian literary couple Charmian Clift and George
Johnston, this fabled 'colony' came to include Leonard Cohen and
numerous other writers and artists. What brought this group to Hydra?
What does their story reveal about the post-war world? Looking at the
Hydra expatriates through their writing, letters, diaries, and
photographs, Genoni and Dalziell identify a deep restlessness within a
rapidly changing time of emerging social movements and counter-cultures,
shifting geo-political realities, incipient pop-cultures, new
technologies of communication and entertainment, and altered
understandings of what it meant to live as an expatriate artist.