The Medusa Glance

June 14, 2017
Aligizakis Manolis
Share

The Medusa Glance is a present-day triptych, a rich and profoundly nuanced contemporary narrative, sensitive to all the immanent and minute shades of reality, aspiring to embrace and incorporate the whole spectrum of lived experience. As a key motive, the author invokes Medusa, the female monster with venomous snakes on hear head. Stricken with fear, we are nonetheless tempted to be immersed in the poetic universe of Manolis. The epigraph characterizes the bold enterprise of the author aimed at the explicitation of the inner architecture and dynamics of experience, at the renewal of narrative practices and at the constant (re)negotiation of identity. The reader is swept away by a polychromatic tempest of verbs and embarks on a journey guiding him to the dimension of the minute and infinitely multifarious undulations of sublunary consciousness.

Continue Reading →

Home

December 23, 2015 3 Comments
Diasporic Literature
Share

no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well
your neighbours running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won’t let you stay.

Continue Reading →

Diasporic Identities – Dionysia Mousoura-Tsoukala

May 31, 2015
Garivaldis Andrea
Share

The current bibliography on Greek literature makes little or no reference to identity, with the exception of a few works such as the literary contribution of Professor Kanarakis, titled “Όψεις της Λογοτεχνίας των Ελλήνων της Αυστραλίας και Νέας Ζηλανδίας [Aspects of the Literature of Greeks in Australia and New Zealand]”(Kanarakis 2003). Although the Greek literature in Australia written in the first half of the twentieth century was predominately that of male writers, the female voice emerged dynamically in the second half of the century, making the female voice very distinct (Georgoudakis 2002; Nickas 1992). Thus, the Greek female writers in Australia appeared in the post-war era, during the Greek mass migration, with Vasso Kalamaras being the first, followed by Dina Amanatides and many more.

Continue Reading →

Diachronic Contribution of Greek to other Languages

April 24, 2015
Diasporic Literature
Share

The Diachronic Contribution of Greek to Other Languages is the new volume compiled and edited by Dr George Kanarakis and published a few months ago in Athens by Papazissis Publications. Dr Kanarakis, Professor of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Charles Sturt University, is a well-known linguist and hellenist.

Continue Reading →

Ο τρόμος ως απλή μηχανή

September 25, 2012
Diasporic Literature
Share

«Είναι απλό: Δεν σε πεθαίνει ο τρόμος. / Ο τρόμος μόνο σε ξεγεννάει. / Βγάζει το φίδι απ’ την κοιλιά σου. / Ο μαιευτήρας σού χαμογελά, / Που ζεις μια τέτοια αιθέρια νύχτα / Είναι απλό: Ο τρόμος δεν σε ταπεινώνει. / Σε αίρει στο ύψος των περιστάσεων. / Απλώς πατάς πάνω στον εαυτό σου. / Ο τρόμος δεν επείγεται. Σε περιμένει. /Μπορείς, σκεπτόμενος, να διαφύγεις./ Απλώς δεν μπορείς να σκεφτείς./ Στον τρόμο ένα κι ένα κάνουν δύο./ Απλώς δεν βρίσκεις το πρώτο και το δεύτερο: / Τη στιγμή αυτή ο ένας σε ψάχνει / Κι ο δεύτερος του φανερώνει τη θέση σου. / Ο τρόμος προνοεί. Είναι ψύχραιμος. / Εξάλλου ξέρετε κι οι δυο τι θα αξιώσει. / Πίνει ακόμη μια γουλιά απ’ τον καφέ του / Κι απλώς σηκώνει τα μάτια του πάνω σου. / Είναι απλό: Η φωνή του αέρα, / Οι ψίθυροι οι σοφοί των ερειπίων, / Το κουρέλι από την υγρασία που απομένει / Σε κάποια σκιερή γωνιά του πυρετού, / Όλα γλιστράνε μέσα στο φρεάτιο. /Ο ήλιος βάζει το δάχτυλό του στο τζάμι / Και κάνεις τη βουτιά. Αυτό ήταν. Θα δεις τώρα / Σε όλη την απλότητά του τον τρόμο».

Continue Reading →