Category: Reading Greece

📚📚One the occasion of his latest novel "The night will fall", one of the most distinguished contemporary Greek writers Konstantinos Tzamiotis spoke to Reading Greece about the relation of #literature with its surrounding social environment, and the way the various micro-stories of his heroes are inextricably linked with the History of the world.

"It’s my firm belief that if you don’t know where you come from, you won’t know where to go next. Yet, knowing your roots can often be extremely complicated if not painful. That’s why sweet revisionism and even sweeter nostalgia prevail these days. Most of us Westerners have lived a rather easy life compared to previous generations. This has clouded and narrowed our horizons. It has made us believe that History is over and that from now on, only constant progress awaits us. But History was, is and will always be here. Especially nowadays we all understand what that means".

Εκδόσεις Μεταίχμιο - Ekdoseis Metaixmio

🎉The Φεστιβάλ Βιβλίου Χανίων - Chania Book Festival opens its doors today and for the next five days (25-29 June) will turn the town of Chania into an international cultural and literary hub.

Themed "Our world, the planet", and with the participation of more that 160 speakers from 16 countries and 100 thematic discussions, #book presentations, workshops, performances, concerts, the Festival returns for its 4th edition through innovative actions, aspiring to become an annual institution, gathering contemporary Greek literature and intellectual thought, while also having an international character with invitations to significant foreign #authors, academics, and intellectuals.

In an era of extreme contrasts and uncertainty, #literature, essays, and #poetry — as sensitive receptors of the messages of our time — bring critical issues into the public sphere and serve as a universal thread that connects humanity, fostering connections and bridging distances. In the words of the Festival's Director, Manolis Pimplis, "This is the value of a festival. The creation of another world within the known world, the fusion of individual existential struggle with collective vision. And this has a deeper existential, social, and political significance".

For more info about the Festival's Events Programme👉https://www.chaniabookfestival.gr/en/events/

Δήμος Χανίων - Municipality of Chania

📚📚It was on 23 June 2005 that a leading poet of the first post-war generation and one of the most important poets to have emerged in Greece after World War II, Manolis Anagnostakis, passed away.

In the poet’s words, “At times I have been a purely political poet. Personally, I do not think I’m a political poet. I am an erotic and political artist at the same time. These two are combined together. It was the era that combined the two. Meaning that one couldn’t be an erotic poet while forgetting the political framework of that time when political passions were at their peak. The political element was vivid, the expression of politics through a kind of love affair, though. That’s why I deny all this about “poetry of defeat” and the like. It’s not the poetry of defeat. It’s an agony for that period of time, an anxiety about it. […] I feel poetry as a way of expressing myself because I couldn’t do it differently. Because the times had been so hard, that one only by expressing their pain could endure it”.