Memoirs

Nana Mouskouri, the Greek singer and one of the world's most popular entertainers, tells her life story for the first time.

For more than 40 years Nana Mouskouri has been a global singing sensation, from her earliest childhood memories of mid-Thirties Greece to her unstoppable rise to the summit of her profession. She tells of life as a child, experiencing the horrors of war and privation, victimised by bitter parental discord, stigmatised by her father's fatal addiction to gambling.

She was a shy inhibited teenager with a passion for singing, a girl compelled to choose between her love of classical music and her fascination with popular song. As a highly successful adult, she has been racked by uncertainty and the torments of love, a woman struggling to balance music - her raison d'etre - with her role as wife and mother.

Here she describes the life of the star we all know, from her beginnings in the nightclubs of Athens to her triumphs on the world's most glittering stages. Nana launches us into her international tours, taking us to Canada, the United States, Japan and Australasia as well as every country in Europe. She describes how she fought to win over audiences everywhere. In Britain, for example, she enjoyed dazzling success after her first English album Over and Over was released. In quick succession, twenty-three of her titles appeared in the charts. In Australia, she achieved fourteen gold discs in 1974 alone.

Hers is a rich and astonishing life, studded with exceptional encounters and friendships: the incomparable trumpeter Quincy Jones, a musician Nana had secretely worshipped since childhood, introduced her to the United States and became her producer; Yvonne Littlewood, the BBC producer, made Nana a leading star of British television in the 1960s and remains one of her closest friends. Queen Elizabeth II, Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra, and the Empress Farah Diba of Iran are among the galaxy of extraordinary figures who played a vital part in Nana's career.

Intimate, rich in humanity and music, a spotlit global tour, Nana's book is an event.