Stay Home With the Authors

stay-at-home

STAY HOME

With the Authors

The City of Athens and Athens Culture Net created a media campaign for these harsh days of social distancing.

We asked esteemed Greek writers of all ages and literature styles to send us a DIY video using their mobile phones or PCs’, sharing their thoughts and their message on handling of the coronavirus crisis.

New videos are available every two days.

 

 

Michalis Modinos talks about books and authors that the pandemic and confinement brought to our attention: from A. Camus ''Palgue'' to his last novel For Camus' ''Plague'' and his novel ''Last Exit: Stymfalia''.

 

''We can't do what we want with the environment. We need humility and to examine once again our values'', Alexis Stamatis urges, talking about the artist's relationship with nature.

 

''Literature and art in confinement - are they imposed?'' Vangelis Raptopoulos wonders. He looks back at Meni Koumandarea's ''Mrs. Kula'', and worries about the limits of digital reality.

 

 

Marika and Aristos: episode one thousand and ninety…so. Tassoula Eptakoili reads an excerpt from her latest book ''The coin in the air'', sending a message of optimism.

 

Dimitris Sotakis shares with us thoughts on the art of forced coexistence with ourselves, these difficult days of incarceration, with the hope that we will emerge from these conditions unscathed.

 

Aris Sfakianakis chooses a personal tour of the author's house. In the books he reads, in the ones he has written, in the series he watches, in cooking, but also in objects - traces of a less visible life.

 

 

Amanda Michalopoulou reads an excerpt from her favorite ''Sleepwalker'' by Margarita Karapanou: instead of the heat, the restriction, instead of the hot sun in Hydra, the self-limitation, instead of dehydration, the coronavirus.

 

''Where is this world going in these heartbreaking times we live in?'' This urgent question is posed by Fotini Tsalikoglou as she shares with us ''The Flash'', a short story by Italo Calvino.

 

Panos Amyras narrates the story of an unknown poet and Resistance fighter, Alexandros Kairis, who was arrested and executed by the Nazis shortly before Easter 1943. For the consolation that poetry and a few verses offer at the "last gasp”.

 

 

''The sky weighed gray, neither cloudy nor clear, but giving one the feeling that, after some change in creation, another ambiance had prevailed in the world…''. Kostas Akrivos reads from "Sosa" by Singer Isaac Bashevis.

 

Stavros Zoumboulakis reads the 14th station of Via Dolorosa from the poetic writing of Paul Claudel, a hopeful reminder that after pain there is -again- creation and Resurrection.

 

''... in time, difficult and heavy matters become light, troubles, sufferings, and sicknesses are treated and heal.'' Theodoris Gonis talks about the Resurrection and wishes all of us courage, through lyrics from “Erotokritos”, and a short excerpt from Solomos.

 

 

''The Treasure of Time'': Alexandra Trada, reads an expert from Menis Koumandareas last novel, a book that focuses on the sense of loss and absence, absence of the human touch and of everyday life treasures and elements.

 

Maria Papagianni who believes in the good spirit of fairy tales, nominated for the H.C. Andersen Award 2020, articulates the collective wish: to get through this nightmare and travel again through our dreams. She unravels the tale of ''The Wonderful Adventure of Nils Hlgersson'' and of the collective fairy-tale that she currently writes along side with P. Mandilaras

 

Ersi Sotiropoulos reads an expert from her novel ''What’s Left of the Night'', a book about the journey of K.P. Cavafy in 1897 in the French capital.

 

 

Stefanos Dandalos encourages us to ''read as much as possible and travel with our fantasy'', as he talks about his last novel ''Flame and Wind''.

 

Pavlina Marvin, used in travelling between truth and fairytales, reads an expert from “Short Stories and a Little Bigger” (Alexadra Plastira, Lika Florou, 1983), stories that -as she admits- have helped her get through.

 

«What happens when life as you knew it is lost and you are called to re-imagine living? Angeliki Darlasi wonders about life after the quarantine, while talking about her novel “The Boy in the Loge”.

 

 

Christos Chrysopoulos urge us to read Terry’s Eagleton “Holy Terror”, a profound and timely investigation of the idea of terror.

 

Stefanos Tsitsopoulos recalls the walk in Kyspeli, as part of “Athenian Book Itineraries” and sends his comforting message about the pandemic.

 

Travel through time in Athens during the 70’s through the narration of Eva Mathioudakis and Kostis Schizakis novel, “Guilty”.

 

 

The historian Lefteris Kantzinos takes us to the relatively unknown Athens during the Frankish occupation, through his book “Athens 1204 – 1456. The unknown years”.