Archipelago

by Natalie Bakopoulos

A stirring and impeccably balanced story of self-discovery, Archipelago will appeal to fans of Katie Kitamura, Rachel Cusk, and Deborah Levy.

A story of odyssey and homecoming, Natalie Bakopoulos’s Archipelago is a striking, haunting feat that offers brilliant meditations on the slippery borders of nations, languages, and the self.

In the wake of a carjacking, Archipelago’s unnamed narrator leaves the States for a translation writing residency on the Dalmation coast. Along the way, she has an unsettling, aggressive encounter with a man on a Greek ferry, which sets off a series of strange events. At the residency, she reunites with Luka, an old friend from Croatia. Luka calls her Natalia, the name of a character he’s written that seems to be based on her. The narrator doesn’t correct him, instead allowing this ascribed version of herself to unfold. Un-selfed, she extends her stay, and she and Luka strike up a romantic relationship as she continues her translation work.

The hazy summer stretches on until, after a sudden shift, she reclaims narrative agency and takes a impulsive road trip back to Greece, crossing borders. Spare and lyrical, with subversions of The Odyssey and its Ithaca, Archipelago charts a wending journey back to the narrator’s family home—not simply back to a self, but beyond it.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction

248 pages, Paperback

First published August 19, 2025

Reviews

[Katie Quirk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bakopoulos has a certain way with words that makes the entire book feel like a daydream. I loved the way the book was sectioned into smaller stream-of-consciousness type chunks. This provided structure to an otherwise potentially confusing narrative.

Additionally, the whole book felt fairly atmospheric. Throughout the entire novel I felt transported to Mediterranean. Midway through I looked up pictures of the Dalmatian coast and it look exactly how I was picturing it in my head. Truly wonderful writing.

Where I struggled with this book, was with the overall themes. The book had promises of something more, but it didn’t quite deliver. For example, the women who seemed to mirror what the main character did and could have been her alternates selves. Or the man on the ferry and commentary of how men treat women as they grow older. Or even exploration of our main character as she enter middle age. These were ever so gently touched upon instead of examined in detail.

My other comment, would be that I struggled to connect with the main character. I found her a bit hypocritical in her generalizations of others, and cringed at how quick she was to judge people others at a dinner party. Furthermore, while I considered her as someone with a strong viewpoint, she felt like such a bystander to her own life. I couldn’t quite understand the passivity.

While the writing itself was so wonderful to read, it could have been improved by a deeper dive into the themes promised early in the book. Overall, I feel like this book has such a strong foundation. It just needed to be built up a bit more to truly shine.

** Disclaimer: I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley but all reviews are my own **

[Rachel Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing here is gorgeous and atmospheric, tracing a thin line of plot through landscapes, language, relationships, and the many layers of self.

I’ve always been fascinated by the translation of literature. Some of my favorite books were translated into English from elsewhere, from languages I do not and never will know. I wonder what’s lost, what’s altered, what might accidentally be gained. Here, the narrator asks us to further consider how a translation might alter the original. She herself, as a person, is translated into the pages of a friend’s novel, and she allows space to explore the impact of the translation.

This dream-like and reflective narrative, told from the insightful perspective of a middle-aged narrator, will be a joy for anyone who appreciates this type of fiction.

Thank you to Tin House, Natalie Bakopoulos, and NetGalley for this eARC. All opinions are my own.

[Nicki Markus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Archipelago was a book that really resonated with me. The narrative has a dream-like tone at times but also considers some deep questions about self -- how we perceive ourselves compared to the version of us others see -- about language and the way that too can shape us, and about translation, not only in connection to language but also linking back to ideas of identity and whether we are different people both to the various people around us and when we are in different places and situations. The story had a deep personal impact on me, as I had been feeling a little lost in myself lately -- as if I were on auto-pilot and had lost joy in things -- and it gave me a desire to fight to regain that interest in life. It is a book I could see myself rereading, possibly coming away with different things from it each time, as I think every reader will have diverse experiences with a book such as this, depending on their own past experiences and current situations. I would certainly read more from this author in the future, and I am giving Archipelago five stars.

I received this book as a free eBook ARC via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

[Cece · Rating 3 out of 5]

First off, thank you to Netgalley, the author, and publisher for this Advanced Readers Copy.

Let me start with the writing in this novel. It is gorgeous. There is no doubt about that. It’s atmospheric, enticing, and makes the whole story feel like a daydream. For the first half of the novel, I was convinced this would be a 5 star read. I loved the plot, the setting, and overall ideas of the piece.

This book works best in its deep look at the act of translation. Particularly, the fact that Luka has translated a version of our narrator into his novel, and even calls her by that name. I thought the question of how translations overwrite originals extremely interesting.

Speaking of Luka, the slow, transitory romance between the two was beautiful. Not idealistic, honestly exactly the opposite, but real and honest. My favorite moments were their interactions. I loved that we never found out if he genuinely thought her name was Natalia, or just called her that because that is the name that he used for her in his novel.

I also thought the moments reflecting on memory were well done. The subtle merging of her memories with the present throughout were very familiar and almost comforting to hear.

On the other hand, the conversations on violence in this text were very hit or miss. Some moments felt authentic and real, arising out of the narrative. While others felt preachy rather than using the story to show what she wanted to get across. I’m still not completely sure what the use of the opening scene was. I feel like understanding that was the core of understanding what the author is trying to say about violence, but it’s never explained fully.

Now, I loved the first half of the novel, but once I got to the second half, my experience went downhill. It got harder to follow the narration. The second act simply felt aimless to me. As if the author didn’t know the ending herself so she just kept going, then hit a wall and decided ‘okay that’s the end.’ The second half also got more heavy handed in its ideas, ruining the subtlety of these ideas in earlier sections of the novel.

While I think this novel wasn’t necessarily successful, I can see a lot of people enjoying the dreamlike atmosphere of this. I think even though I found the second half aimless, I loved the first half enough to check out Natalie Bakopoulo’s other novels.

[sarah cucchiara · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

thank you to tin house books and netgalley for an advance copy!

I think this was an interesting concept for a novel, and in theory, it's something I traditionally would've loved, but unfortunately, I really disliked this book. Stream of consciousness writing is often one of my favorite ways a story can be presented, but I think it worked against the story in this case. I almost always try to drag out the ending of a book when I love it, but here I was practically speeding through it to finish.

I've read a lot of books about women older than me, and usually I don't have a hard time connecting with them or feeling something towards the characters and/or their life experiences, but in the case of Archipelago, I felt almost nothing towards the protagonist. I couldn't relate to her, I didn't want to learn anything about her, and I didn't care about her relationships. I definitely enjoy books of women ruminating on their lives and experiences, but this was just whiplash between descriptions of the landscape (beautiful!) and then a 2-page anecdote that didn't really fit.

This book really wasn't for me, but I did appreciate Bakopolous' descriptions of places and language, truly some beautiful prose in there. Read this if you like long-winded descriptions and almost no plot/characterization, I guess.

[Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tbh skimmed this more than I should… read a few times when I was anxious (waiting at the vet) or distracted (half listening to other people’s conversations at the pool) but tbh that kind of is the vibe of this atmospheric, vibey, road trippy, and straight up trippy book. Some of y’all will like this but it couldn’t really grab me and I don’t think it’s because of how distracted I was.

[Carrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley, Natalie Bakopoulos, and Tin House Books for this arc!

“It seems appropriate I begin this story here, with a haze, a transposition, a dislocation, a movement between the borders of language and voice and home.”

Above all things, this is a novel about borders: borders between nations, between writers and translators, between how others see us and how we see ourselves, between antiquity and modernity, between memory and reality. How those connections are altered by language and shape our identities. Bakopoulos's prose is beautiful and often drifts into stream of consciousness - much in the way of Roberto Bolaño or Donna Tartt - gently steering an often amorphous plot to a cathartic conclusion.

I was moved by the quiet, transitory romance between the narrator and Luka. I was left thinking about how the trajectory of our lives shapes our capacity for vulnerability or permanence. There's something compelling about this book; I would start to think it was too meandering, and then find myself thinking all day about getting back to it.

This is not a novel I should recommend to everyone (the style might be too niche for some readers) but I'm going to do it anyway.

[The Starry Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

Archipelago by Natalie Bakopoulos is a middle age coming of age story about a woman who meets herself in a landscape not so different from her own.

The unnamed narrator, a translator, is attending a writer's residency on the Croatian coast where she encounters an old friend Luka who calls her Natalia after the character in his book. She begins to imagine herself as Natalia, freeing herself of expectation and limitation. She meets different parts of herself, thought to be long forgotten or abandoned, memories triggered by the raw beauty of the Croatian coast, reminding her of the Greece of her youth. As she translates her work, she reinterprets her own life and decides to head back to Greece where she merges with past and memory. Like an archipelago, she comes to understand her life has been a collection of experiences scattered across the vastness of time, a rugged ephemera that has translated into the totality of her being.

Poetic. Introspective. Self-reflective. The author put into words what is so hard to articulate. The transitional time of middle age, the liminality of borders between your self and perception of self. How we talk to ourselves, how we contextualize our experiences based on where we are. Reading this book was well timed for me as I have still been processing my first experience abroad and how different I was over there. In the story, everything feels familiar and yet so different for the narrator who seeks to recapture the feeling of home, a primeval state of being, free from intrusion, conditioning, and illusion.

With a dreamy prose that is both mythic and healing, Archipelago by Natalie Bakopoulos is a story I will revisit again.

Thank you to the publisher for providing me with a free arc via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Jessalyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me an e-ARC in exchange for a review. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

Archipelago is a literary fiction novel following our unnamed narrator as she travels through Croatia and Greece. Working at a translators writing residency program, she is reunited with an old friend, who practically assigns her the role of a character in his current working novel. Over time, their relationship develops, and she extends her stay to maintain the comfort-ability that her situation allows her.

There is no doubt that this book is beautiful. The prose is gorgeous, with a very light, airy, thought-provoking narrative style. The scenery was beautifully described, and at times I myself felt transported to the beautiful Dalmatian Coast.

I love the decision to keep the narrator nameless- every time a name would be given, its carefully redacted, to add to the "mystery" of just who she is. She is much more than a name, and you get to know the main character extremely well, but at the same time not at all.

The nonlinear narrative is something that I typically struggle with, as it can be so hard to get right. The author does a wonderful job at splicing memories and scenes from the past with the current storyline, keeping you on your toes.

I think my only complaints are: 1) that sometimes it feels very passive, like we are just reading things that have happened before, not necessarily that are happening in real time to the narrator, and 2) the choice to not use quotations to notate dialogue. Both of these are quite minor when compared to the full scope of the story, though.

While this book may have a very niche audience, I will certainly be thinking about it for a while to come.

[Sophia Eck]

Archipelago by Natalie Bakopoulos was almost a quite incredible read, and I really hope before they publish it they can make it so. Our narrator is a literature translator who, after a weird encounter with a strange man on the ferry, arrives in Greece for a writing residency, and promptly has a casual reacquainting with a man named Luka, and enters into a rekindling of a past but dejected feeling relationship. Luka calls her by the wrong name, the name of the heroine of his novel he is writing, prompting a recognition of the two women’s uncanny resemblance; She never corrects him. We experience quite an even keeled plot of her journey through self realization over the span of what feels like a few months, and there are a lot of stand out lines and astute literary vibes presented in the meantime, the con in disguise here though being the unvarying nature of the novel, which overall lends to a feeling of indeterminate recollection when referencing back to the former content of the book itself. It all generally runs together, and at no point is their climactic moments enough to remember the impact the touching lines gave in the moment you read them, like a hit sunny day with relieving winds so timed and concise that you never truly reach scorching hot nor biting cold, a notable moment. I really do think readers who enjoy a book with a relatively flat line of an act structure, and a quiet but thoughtful read, something like The Idiot by Batuman, will I am sure enjoy this one, and generally, despite a few paltry qualms, I would be very open to giving this another try in its eventual finished state.

[Ryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is very much a book about getting lost in your identity. Going on a journey of self-discovery during an emotionally difficult part of your life and the dissection of language and how we use it to convey our feelings and identities to others.

It's whimsical in a sense that feels like a lucid dream. Natalie Bakopoulos' writing is very smooth and calming to read, the description of the world is so lush and beautiful and really transported me into the novel. Bakopoulos' ability to weave multiple narratives together is also excellent, as the novel is about a woman assuming the identity of a fictional character based on her while translating a novel at the same time--and discovering the meaning and story behind it as she translates.

Bakopoulos is certainly an author that I will be keeping an eye out for. And I'm very interested in the books that she has publish already.

*Thank you the Netgalley and Tin House for providing me an ARC copy of this book. All opinions expressed are entirely my own*

[Kristen Paulson-Nguyen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm back reading this summer after cutting out all social media. Thank goodness I did! I'm having fun finding books at my local thrift store. I picked this paperback novel up at the thrift. I enjoyed it. I never knew what was going to happen with the main character and that kept the plot fresh. I liked that many chapters were short. At times the metaphor dragged a bit (sometimes a book can be almost too clever), but I always felt curious to pick up the book again. I guess what I mean is sometimes I like more plot movement and fewer big ideas, but the language was fresh and never weighted, so I kept going. I think Archipelago is a perfect summer read. Many of the chapters take place in hot/sunny places or involve travel. The author does a great job with setting so I felt immersed in the book's scenery as I read. An intriguing, curious book that makes you feel like you're swimming on its surface--we don't learn a ton about the main characters--but it's fun to swirl around in all the book's various ideas about story.

[mia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very lovely prose that, as many others have noted, felt very dreamlike, and drew me in. There were moments scattered throughout the narrative that felt very profound, and yet I think some of the narrative was lost in attempts to make the novel overly profound. I’m not sure that I was able to connect with the main character as I felt that I never fully understood her—and maybe that was the point as it’s clear that main character seems to struggle to understand herself, especially in relation to others. This is a novel of perspective and questions how one’s perspective of self differs from how one is perceived by others. There were many thematic layers to this novel such as identity (cultural and political), friendship, intimacy, geography, etc., I’m just not sure it was all fully fleshed out in a way that brought the together as a whole. Would still highly recommend Bakopoulos’ work for her beautiful prose and ability to weave sentences together in a way that is atmospheric.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

[Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our narrator assumes the identity of Natalia, a character in an acquaintance's novel. Her experiences seem to blend with her personal history and that of the fictional character. She is in the midst of translating a different novel in which she discovers the story as she translates it, as opposed to completing the story first. An exercise to create and erase.

As she and her acquaintance complete their projects, there is a sudden parting, and she returns to her traditional home using the same tunnel that brought them together in this place.

It's dreamy, curious and engaging. I'd give it five stars, but it took me too long to grasp the story, and I'm still not sure I have! Well worth the time.

[Nathan Oates · Rating 5 out of 5]

This brilliant, intricate novel has haunted me every minute since I finished reading over a month ago. The novel pulses with a deep undercurrent of threat that never rises fully to the surface, but which infuses itself into every element of the character's life. The novel resists the conventional trappings of narrative contrivance in a way that makes it pulse with truth, capturing life as it actually is. Few novels ever achieve this blurring of the boundary between fiction and life, and while the experience is sometimes disorienting, it is always engaging and vivid. A beautiful book about art and aging and beauty and home and love and loneliness. Highly recommend.

[Sylvia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the kind of prose that will stab your heart with beauty. Subtext that will hit deep. Bizarre, gorgeous, character-driven, and reflective, this novel explores the meaning of self and language, perfect for anyone who appreciates beautiful language and something outside mainstream American storytelling. Especially rewarding for women over 40, those who speak multiple languages, and those who’ve lived in multiple countries. This one will sit with me for a while. This was my first reading of Bakapoulos's work, and I plan to read more!

Disclaimer: I read the ARC

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Tin House for the ARC.

I was immediately mesmerized by Bakopoulos's ability to create the world which surrounds the reader and renders the location into my mind. The connections between translations and herself offer many different perspectives to her life and life in general. I

In the soul searching, life continues to insert itself in to her thoughts and reflections as she makes progress in her life purpose.

Thought provoking for everyone.

[Rhonda Lomazow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Haunting mesmerizing read from the opening scene on the ferry where a strange man starts staring at the unnamed narrator.I was immediately drawn in to the characters their world.The people their story their lives.Gorgeous writing.

[Jennifer Pullen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A strange and eerie novel examining the narratives we tell about ourselves.

[Olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

stunning, loved it

[Venneh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This ended up being a short, reflective novel where a woman goes abroad to a translation workshop, decides to play out a small affair with a friend after he calls her by the name of a character he's written that may or may not be based off of her, and her seemingly suddenly waking up in the back third ad realizing she has to go back to her life. Reading this feels like a daydream of sorts, and I kept half expecting it to take a sudden dark turn. Still a lovely, surreal read.

[Peach · Rating 3 out of 5]

A woman travels through the Mediterranean to participate in a translation residency program, where she strikes up a relationship with an old friend, even though he calls her by the wrong name. The plot lost me quite often, and there’s a feeling of disconnect between the reader and the protagonist. It was difficult to ever feel truly invested or immersed in the events that were unfolding. The publisher has described it as “spare and lyrical” and I very much agree. The writing is where this novel truly shines, the flowing prose is evocative, while the rest of the narrative components are minimally attended. Perhaps this one deserves a second read to absorb more. It did have something special about it that stuck with me.
3.5⭐
🫶 Thank you to the publisher for my copy!

[sarah panic · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is something about the way the author writes and the way their prose just makes you feel as if you are in a dream. The whole book feels like you are lost in some sort of hazy dream-state. It is full of the most beautiful paragraphs and I was taken away by the combination of words.

Thank you to TinHouse for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.