Posts filed under 'Greek literature'

Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

The latest literary news from Greece and France!

This week, our editors take us to Greece and France, where they find exciting projects at the National Library, urgent new poetry in translation, and theater adaptations. From the Afro Greek experience to new takes on the work of Annie Ernaux, read on to find out more!

Christina Chatzitheodorou, Editor-at-Large, reporting on Greece

The National Library of Greece (NLG) is currently displaying the fruits of their project “We, the Afro-Greeks: black literature as a cultural bridge.” Until the end of April, the Library will be displaying new books by authors of African origin that focus on themes of immigration and racism—additions enabled by this project. This comes after a few initiatives by and for Afro-Greeks that engage with the lived experience of Black people in Greece. The term “Afro-Greek” itself, as Adéọlá Naomi Adérè̩mí explains, is relatively new: “We started using it around 2015 to 2017 as a term to express the experience of being Black and raised or born in Greece, of having our formative years in Greece and identifying as Greek citizens legally and culturally. We are Greek and African.” READ MORE…

An Unexpected Lurch of the Heart: An Interview With A. E. Stallings

It’s an awareness of diachronic time, of the present and the past coexisting in the same space.

In the world of contemporary English poetry, A. E. Stallings is a giant. Known for both her innovative, various work within traditional poetic forms as well as her extraordinary translations of ancient Greek and Roman texts, her poems celebrate both the timelessness and resilience of technique, as well as how ancient constructions can continually metamorphose and evolve to enliven contemporary internalities and realities. In this following interview, she speaks to the allure of the classics, the essential work of keeping words alive, and the symbiotic relationship between translation and poetry.

Sebastián Sánchez (SS): Although you’ve spoken on writing poetry from a young age, you did not start to learn Latin until you were an undergraduate at the University of Georgia, where you switched from an English and Music major to a Classics major. What was it about Classics that attracted you?

A. E. Stallings (AES): I think I probably always had a sneaking attraction to it… to anything a bit arcane or out of the ordinary. My grandfather had studied Greek in seminary (he was an Episcopal priest), and was proud of his accomplishments in that regard. My Dad had wanted me to take Latin in high school (having been quite good at Latin in high school himself), but in the end, defiantly, I took Spanish—which I also much enjoyed. But I think I started to feel I was missing out, missing something. You know, you would run into these Latin or Greek tags in English literature, and feel that this was something you really ought to know. In the end, I thought I’ll just take Latin 101 and get a taste for it, but I had an extraordinary and extraordinarily eccentric professor, Dr. Robert Harris (at the University of Georgia). The class was riveting. And my classmates were interesting too, harder to pigeonhole than the average English major or even music major.

I then just kept taking Latin classes (because what was the point, Dr. Harris would say, unless we were going to get as far as some Virgil, which he recommended we read in the graveyard), until one day the department head (Dr. Rick LaFleur) took me aside and suggested I might as well change my major at that point. As an aspiring poet, I also appreciated the rather old-fashioned close reading we did of poems—scanning the meter, memorizing, looking at allusions and sound effects, rhetorical devices. This felt useful to me as a writer. I was not particularly interested in theory, which perhaps was having an ascendance in other literature courses at that time.

SS: In 1999, you moved to Athens and have lived there ever since. What led you to make this decision, and how did this impact your development as a writer?

AES: It was supposed to be, like so many things in life, a temporary decision. My husband is Greek, and he wanted to try moving back to Greece and living there a while. I think we said two years. Two children and two decades later, of course, it seems more momentous than it did at the time. It is hard to say how it may have affected me as a writer. It did probably affect how I wrote about Greek mythology (it all seemed less… mythological, I guess), and no doubt made me more aware of modern Greek literature. It probably pushed me more towards Greek generally, even though I had trained more as a Latinist. It has affected me in other ways; being in Greece and married to a journalist, I felt like I was both on the edge of where things are happening and at the forefront of some more general trends—the economic crisis, the migration surge, and climate change, all of that seemed more visible and more towards the surface of things in Greece, which is on the border of so much. That in turn has changed how I read classical literature, with an understanding of the geography: the placement of Greece, in the Aegean, is further towards the East and the global South than Western classics departments tend to place it, at least theoretically. It has re-oriented my sense of Classical literature quite literally. READ MORE…

From Palestine to Greece: A Translated Struggle 

. . . utopias are not solely objects of fantasy but are objectives to be built and lived . . . at the intersection of art and revolution.

Palestine and Greece have long enjoyed a strong relationship of solidarity and friendship, fortified by mutual assistance during political tumults, expressions of recognition, and profound demonstrations towards peace and independence. In this essay, Christina Chatzitheodorou takes us through the literature that has continually followed along the history of this connection, and how translations from Arabic to Greek has advocated and enlivened the Palestinian cause in the Hellenic Republic.

Following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the siege of Beirut in 1982, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) was forced to leave the city. Its leader, Yasser Arafat, then fled Beirut for Tunisia, and, in fear of being captured or assassinated by Israel, he asked his Greek friend Andreas Papandreou for cover. The two had previously joined forces during the dictatorial regime in Greece known as Junta or the Regime of the Colonels, in which Arafat supported the Panhellenic Liberation Movement (Panellinio Apeleutherotiko Kinima/PAK) founded by Papandreou, and had also offered training in Middle Eastern camps to the movement’s young resistance fighters. 

Arafat arrived then from war-torn Beirut to Faliron, in the south of Athens. He received a warm dockside reception by the then-Prime Minister Papandreou and other top government officials, as well as a small crowd consisting mostly of Greek Socialist Party (PASOK) members and Greece-based Palestinians, who stood by chanting slogans in support of the Palestinian cause. Papandreou called Arafat’s arrival in Athens a “historic moment” and assured him of Greece’s full support in the Palestinians’ struggle; after all, while Arafat was coming to Athens, accompanied by Greek ships, pro-Palestinian protests were taking place around the country almost every other day. 

Although our support and solidarity with the Palestinian cause neither began nor stopped there, that day remains a powerful reminder of the traditional ties and friendship between Greek and Palestinian people. But more importantly, it comes in total contrast with the position of the current Greek government. Now, despite the short memories of politicians, it is the literature and translations of Palestinian works which continue to remind us of Greece’s historical solidarity to Palestine, particularly from left-wing and libertarian circles. 

READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

News from Latin America, Greece, and Spain!

Join us this week with a new batch of literary dispatches covering a wide range of news from Latin America, Greece, and Spain; from censorship and literary awards to a slew of literary festivals, read on to learn more!

Miranda Mazariegos, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Latin America

In Colombia, Laura Ardila Arrieta’s book La Costa Nostra was pulled from publication days before going to print by Editorial Planeta, one of the most influential publishers in the Spanish-speaking world. Ardila Arrieta’s book investigates one of the most powerful families in Colombia and was pulled due to “three legal opinions that proved to us that the text contained significant risks that, as a company, we did not want to take on,” according to Planeta’s official statement. Ardila Arrieta was signed by Indent Literary Agency a few days later, and her book has instead been published by Rey Naranjo, an independent Colombian publisher who stated that the publishing of the book represents “the desire to contribute so that the future of our democratic system improves and that education and reading empowers us as a society.” 

READ MORE…

Translation Tuesday: Five Poems by George Sarantaris

about us hums / a mythical insect / a God

Part of the Generation of the 30s⁠—a group of Greek modernist writers and artists⁠—George Sarantaris has not received as much attention as the writers of that era, such as the Nobel laureate and poet Giorgos Seferis. This Translation Tuesday, translator Pria Louka brings five of Sarantaris’ poems into English. Read on and appreciate these imagistic, mist-like poems⁠—philosophical and sensual in their very reticence and brevity.

Philosophy

       For Kostas Despotopoulos

Conversation with the object
a lonesome thing,
deliberate silence
from an unknown listener
approaches us
and binds,
about us hums
a mythical insect
a God

The Mist

The mist teems
With anemones

Look at the branches
What a lake
What impatient heart
Peer into
The right drop
What drive
Takes the child
What languor
The woman

READ MORE…

An Interview With Tomasz Zaród, Head of the Polish Publishing House Książkowe Klimaty

Another feature of the books we publish is that they break stereotypes and show the relations between communities.

Książkowe Klimaty, a publishing house based in the Polish city of Wrocław, has been gradually carving out its distinct and variegated literary footprint since its founding in 2013. In accordance to their mission statement, which states a passion for presenting what is “close and unknown at the same time”, Książkowe Klimaty has continually serviced Polish readers with a rich variety of contemporary European texts, publishing translations from the Czech, Romanian, Turkish, Hungarian, and more. In the following interview, Editor-at-Large for Slovakia, Julia Sherwood, speaks with Książkowe Klimaty’s founder, Tomasz Zaród, on the house’s incidental founding, the award-winning titles available, and the house’s southward expansion. 

Julia Sherwood (JS): Poland has no shortage of publishing houses. Many of them also publish translated literature but, as far as I know, yours is the only one that focuses solely, or almost solely, on translations. How and when did it all start?

Tomasz Zaród (TZ): You are right, most of the books published by Książkowe Klimaty are translations, although we have also published some by Polish writers. It all started by chance. A friend of mine with a small publishing house had acquired the rights to a few works, including a novel by the Slovak writer Pavol Rankov, Stalo sa prvého septembra (alebo inokedy), which we translated as Zdarzyło się pierwszego września (albo kiedy indziej, and which can also be found in English translation as It Happened on the First of September (or some other time). I had an online bookstore with well-developed logistics, so we decided to join forces. This was in 2013, and when my friend left after a year, I was left with a publishing house. I had no previous experience in this field but had learned a great deal during that first year. And I was very lucky to have a great team. There were three of us at the start: one in charge of editorial matters (finding translators, editors, copyeditors, etc.), another dealing with promotion, while I tried to tie everything together in Excel. None of us were very experienced, but maybe that is why we dared to do things people with more experience might not have done! Right now, the permanent staff consists of two people responsible for commissioning, promotion, and sales, while I handle the business side of things. All the other work (editing, copyediting, typesetting, and graphic design) is done by freelancers. Looking back on the eight years since we began, I believe that the gamble has paid off: we have published more than ninety books translated from well over a dozen languages.

JS: The literal translation of the name of your publishing houseKsiążkowe klimaty—is “Book or literary atmospheres”, which doesn’t sound so good in English, but your mission becomes clear from the explanation on your website, which says that every series you publish aims to convey the unique atmosphere of a country or a region. What are the criteria you use to select the countries and books that you publish?

TZ: Most of the books we have published come from Central and Southern Europe, in the widest sense. These are countries not that far from Poland—places where we spend our holidays or that we visit at weekends, but at the same time, we know nothing about the great literature written there. We started with Slovak and Czech, then moved on to Greek and then Romanian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, and then further south. We try to select books that are critically acclaimed and have won some awards. Ten of the books we have published have received the European Union Prize for Literature, many are recipients of prestigious local awards, such as the Magnesia Litera in the Czech Republic and Anasoft Litera in Slovakia. Another feature of the books we publish is that they break stereotypes and show the relations between communities. For example, It Happened on the First of September features the multi-ethnic mix in southern Slovakia, while Księga szeptów (Cartea soaptelor / The Book of Whispers) by Varujan Vosganian deals with the history of Armenians in Romania. Imaret. W cieniu zegara (Imaret: Three Gods, One City) by Iannis Kalpouzos deals with Greek-Turkish relations, while Bulgarian-Turkish relations are the subject of Requiem dla nikogo (Requiem for Nobody) by Zlatko Enev, translated by Hanna Karpinska. We also rely on suggestions from our translators. READ MORE…

Translation Tuesday: “The Daughter from Jannina” by Vassilis Alexakis

It feels as if I’m using this story just to see if I am able to write a more personal piece.

For this week’s Translation Tuesday, a proposed coffee date unearths secrets and regrets in Vassilis Alexakis’ “The Daughter from Jannina.” Our protagonist is a journalist awaiting the arrival of a young woman claiming to be his daughter. A conversation about the veracity of the woman’s claim reveals a bittersweet history of personal mistakes. Here we have the trademarks of Alexakis’ writing: straightforward exposition, quotidian detail, and a dryly comic voice, all of which belie a deeply complex interiority and emotional self-awareness. With emotional subtlety and humour, our protagonist weighs the importance of love and family life against the backdrop of national displacement. Translator Rebecca Dehner-Armand writes:[Alexakis] has composed a singular œuvre, marked by his particular staccato and wry style, that illuminates the experience of a growing sector of French society: immigrants, exiles, and foreigners.” 

A cloud of smoke floats above the ping-pong table. I am seated at my desk, at the other end of the room. At the moment, I am not smoking. On the ping-pong table there is a mostly used-up roll of toilet paper, a paddle, and Lina’s camera, as well as a Tupperware container that I should return to Grigoris’ mother. A few days ago, she brought me some garbanzo bean soup in this container. Where has the other paddle gone? I don’t see the ball either. I played ping-pong last night with Vasso. The match was shit. Lina came over afterwards, around midnight. She slept here last night. It hasn’t been long now since she left.

I am listening to The Turk in Italy, a joyful opera by Rossini. The Turk falls in love with a married Italian woman and begins plotting to purchase her. She gently explains to him that this type of transaction is not done in Italy. In reality, I am not really paying attention to the opera. My mind is elsewhere. It seems the cloud of smoke is headed for the open French doors. It is quite chilly, but I don’t have the strength to get up and close the doors. Lina will no doubt come by sometime during the day to pick up her camera.

Normally, I should be prepping for my TV show by now – I am going to be interviewing the minister of maritime trade—or writing my column for The Investor. These notes surprise me; I am not used to recording my comings and goings. I am writing in pencil, which surprises me even more: for a long time now, I’ve typed out everything. Maybe I chose a pencil precisely because I ascribe no importance to this story, because I can envision a quick abandonment. I can see myself throwing it in the trash after ripping it to shreds. A little piece of paper will fall to the floor. Once I bend to pick it up, there will be a knock at my door: it will be Stavroula, this young girl who was not at our get-together last night and who thinks she’s my daughter. READ MORE…

Translation Tuesday: “The Hot-Air Balloon” by Vassilis Alexakis

In reality, it’s like all words, with good and bad attributes, capable of protecting a thought as much as betraying a meaning.

This week’s Translation Tuesday features microfiction by Vassilis Alexakis. “The Hot-Air Balloon” begins and ends in an ambiguity, thickly described. The prose is structured around a choice without mooring, a choice that presents itself only to give way to the realization that a language system is something that only appears all-encompassing. By intellectualizing the feeling of infinite choice within a closed system and the eventual choice to leave it, Alexakis acutely describes a weightlessness only obtainable by those who walk between epistemologies. In the end, it is the feeling of the transcendence of the system, thematized as an air-balloon, that prevails. It is only through a meditation on words that we can unmoor ourselves from a system. This airy story depicts well the critical posture, especially of those with multiple languages to rely on.

I was asked to write a definition for a word without knowing which one. I had no hesitation. The more arduous a task, the more it fills me with joy. If I’d been given a word, I would’ve felt some pressure; I would’ve felt trapped. Now that I’ve briefly surveyed the entirety of the lexicon, I feel free as if I were being carried in a hot-air balloon.

Is it a masculine or feminine-gendered word? From my point of view, this question is of no concern. Besides, it’s not uncommon for a word’s synonyms to be of the opposite gender. READ MORE…

Words Containing Multitudes: Theodor Kallifatides on Writing The Siege of Troy

A basic human need is also to remember and be remembered. That is why we put one stone on top of another, we paint, we sing, we write.

In September, we were honored to present Theodor Kallifatides’s The Siege of Troy as our monthly Book Club feature. This poignant, multilayered novel intertwines a modern coming-of-age wartime story with a psychologically profound retelling of the classic Iliad. In the following interview, Assistant Managing Editor Josefina Massot speaks with the author on overcoming writer’s block, writing about Greece in a foreign land and tongue, and humanizing ancient heroes.

Josefina Massot (JM): You had an unexpected bout of writer’s block at age seventy-seven, back in 2015, after almost fifty years of uninterrupted literary output. The Siege of Troy was, I believe, the first novel you wrote once you overcame it. Did your writing process change at all as a result? What was it like, rediscovering your narrative voice in novel form?

Theodor Kallifatides (TK): Yes, it affected me and my writing greatly. I felt free from all expectations, from all demands from the publisher, the public, and myself, and my writing got wings it never had before. I did not care about anything except doing justice to my deepest feelings and ideas. I got back both my eyes. Before it, I always had—as most writers do, I dare say—an eye on what people would think about my work. Suddenly, I simply did not care. I was free. READ MORE…

Translation Tuesday: “The Space Between” by Christos Asteriou

“We slip between the spaces left by bodies, through the holes in the teeth, and slide down the subway escalators upside down.”

I’ve been living with Lata since the beginning of the summer. It’s true that I’m only fifteen and she’s around the same age, that we don’t have a single thing to call our own yet—no money, no nothing—but what’s the big deal? Lata and I, we know how to make things work no matter what. We haven’t found a long-term place yet, that’s true, too. We’re usually all over the map—on rooftops, in warehouses—but not every day of the week because we go back home often. I go to my mom’s and she goes to hers. She’s the one that really makes a scene, screaming and crying and saying a whole bunch of things I can’t understand. Of course, she always ends up cooling it and putting her arms around Lata; once she starts in with her broken Greek, everything goes back to normal. My mom, on the other hand, cooks dinner whether I’m there or not in the evening, and waits for me to show up with my stories about the outside world. It’s hard out there, I tell her, the old buildings are really tough and they chase us away. Her eyes open wide and she gives me a strange look. They put up scarecrows and wooden signs on the rooftops, as if we were unwanted birds, and if, after all this, we don’t heed their warning and lie down to sleep up there, there’s always someone who busts in and breaks it up with a gunshot in the air. On the other hand, you’ve got to have real balls to vault the obstacles on those new places, they’re super difficult, and they too want us out of there. I show her with my hands how you’re supposed to do the moves, how to jump over obstacles rhythmically, one-by-one. Like a primitive beast lost in the crowds of civilization, a mad rabbit let loose in the megalopolis. My body taut, my calves like stone, my lungs full of grimy air: that’s how I make it through the heart of the storm, see? That’s how the mind opens when you jump into space, how your thoughts breathe in oxygen. She starts yelling at me about how if I don’t shape up and get it together I will never find a job, about how I’ll get killed one day—all the usual babble. Don’t shout, I tell her, you don’t know what you’re talking about. How could you? Don’t worry—there’s no reason to. Everything will be fine: you see me now, there’s no obstacle anywhere that scares me anymore. And you know what, I like living like this; I like having you and Lata; I like walking on air. And if anyone asks me, I’ll tell them straight to their face: I don’t want to change anything at all, I want to stay like this forever.

READ MORE…