Dimitra Louka was born in Preveza. She is a philologist. She lives and works in Athens. She has published the short story collections Knot by Knot (Kichli, 2019), Mouta and Other Stories (Kichli, 2021), and Persephone in the Wolf’s Mouth (Kichli, 2024). For Knot by Knot she was awarded the New Prose Writer Award of the online magazine O Anagnostis. The collection was also shortlisted for the Menis Koumandareas Award of the Hellenic Authors’ Society, while Mouta and Other Stories and Persephone in the Wolf’s Mouth were shortlisted for the Short Story Award of O Anagnostis magazine. Her short stories have been included in collective volumes and published in print and online literary magazines. They have been translated into French and Hebrew.
Persephone in Worf’s Mouth draws from myth while placing its heroine in a contemporary emotional landscape. What sparked the initial idea for this story and its mythological threads? Were there specific challenges in reimagining a well-known mythic figure in a contemporary or personal setting?
I grew up in the wider Acheron area, swimming as a child and playing at its estuary. I think I always felt the historical and mythological weight that this place carries, so the appropriation and exploration of the myth of Persephone came as a natural consequence. Since childhood, I also enjoyed seeing reality transformed, and I read mythical narratives and folk tales with great passion. So, while in my two previous books, the short-story collections Knot by Knot and Mouta and Other Stories, I transformed the external world, in Persephone in the Wolf’s Mouth I reshaped the ancient Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone.
This myth also became a means through which I could speak about the mother-daughter relationship, a bond that has preoccupied me for years; first as a daughter, and later as a mother. It was also a way to explore the violent imposition of the masculine upon the feminine, a thematic thread that runs through my previous books as well. Naturally, it is not easy to invent thematic or ideological reversals of a myth, no matter how welcoming it may be to new interpretations and approaches. Yet I treated this writing adventure like a puzzle; and whenever its pieces finally slid into place, I felt an immense sense of satisfaction.
Myth, symbolism, memory, identity and psychological introspection often appear in your stories. What draws you to these recurring themes?
Indeed, many of my stories rest upon “mythic grounds”, which I attempt to widen by reinterpreting them. Symbols operate in much the same way throughout my work. The symbolic polysemy, for instance, of the title Persephone in Wolf’s Mouth embraces nearly all the thematic threads that run through the collection. “Persephone” is a young girl setting out on a new life, far from the shelter of her mother’s protection, exposed to all the dangers such a departure entails. And “wolf’s mouth” points symbolically to the narcissistic mother who devours her daughter, to the violent male who seizes her from her paternal home, to the deathliness that can inhabit a marriage, and even to that threshold between life and death where many of my heroines find themselves suspended.
Myths and symbols are primal forms from which endless stories can be born; they speak to us in subtle, subterranean ways, linking the individual to the collective fate, the present to its ancestral past. I feel the same is true of memory and identity: when we write “stories,” we are, in truth, trying to articulate who we are, what we carry with us, and what we long to forget. I return to these realms again and again because they offer me a way to better understand myself and the world. As for psychological introspection, it lies at the very heart of literary writing, which must illuminate the contradictions, the shadows, the hidden passions that pulse beneath every human experience.
Your work focuses on the mother–daughter relationship, which unfolds within the constraints of patriarchy. How do you navigate the feminist dimension in your work?
In many of the stories in my collection, mothers and daughters suffer under male violence that seeks to control and imprison women. Indeed, my stories unfold in environments structured by patriarchal norms. Since they operate within a sphere where gender roles have historically crystallized, they can also be read through a feminist lens. My heroines emerge as symbolic female figures, confronting the masculine within the framework of a necessary coexistence. Some lose the battle, provoking feelings of anger and indignation at the injustice inflicted upon women; others stand tall, prevailing in their struggle. In the former, the roles, images, and destinies that patriarchy imposes on women are affirmed, emphasizing the need for female self-awareness. In the latter, the mythic archetype of Persephone is reimagined – a woman whose fate was once determined by men – thereby overturning the ancient Greek myth.
I should, however, emphasize that my writing does not stem from any theoretical starting point. What primarily concerns me is human experience: the tensions, the silences, the unspoken expectations that shape this complex relationship, which I approach as profoundly human and existential; always, of course, within the historical framework that inevitably shapes it. In other words, a feminist reading does not exhaust the work. It is one possible lens through which it can be understood, but not the only path.
Many of your protagonists are women, often negotiating gender, power, tradition. How do you see your work contributing to contemporary debates about gender and voice in Greek literature?
As aforementioned, my short stories do not originate from a theoretical stance on gender, but from the lived experience of my heroines, who confront traditional forms of authority and predetermined social roles. To the extent that my work engages with contemporary discussions about the female voice, it certainly exhibits ideological and aesthetic traits recognizable as feminine, but it does so through a quiet, understated approach, focused on the fragility of the mother–daughter relationship and the individual journey of the woman, beyond established feminist models.
How do you shape the language of your prose – its rhythm, its density, its emotional texture – and what role does linguistic experimentation play in your writing process?
The language of my prose is shaped by a conscious tendency toward simplicity and density: adjectives are limited, while verbs and nouns dominate, and, syntactically, simple sequences of main clauses are generally preferred. The short story, as a genre, demands precision and economy of expression, so I strive to ensure that every word carries the weight it deserves. The rhythm of my texts is internal; it often emerges from the silence between sentences. To achieve this, I read each paragraph aloud, often multiple times. As for linguistic experimentation, it is not an end in itself. Small shifts in syntax or experiments with narrative perspective are sometimes used as tools to convey subtle emotional nuances. My aim is not to dazzle with language, but to create a linguistic form that suits each story.
Looking back at your earlier collections, Knot by Knot (2019) and Mouta and Other Stories (2021), do you see a through‐line or a thematic evolution that leads into Persephone in Wolf’s Mouth?
Although there is certainly a common thematic thread running through all three of my short story collections – focusing on women’s experiences in patriarchal societies – the first two, Knot by Knot and Mouta and Other Stories, arose from a deep need to return to my ancestral past, to listen to the narratives of my parents and grandparents, and perhaps to settle certain internal matters or uncover hidden secrets I had long been unaware of.
While my first two books were written by observing and attentively listening to the stories of the people from my native land, Persephone in Wolf’s Mouth emerged from a systematic reading of other literary texts and folk tales from the global tradition. In the stories of this latest collection, I draw my material from a variety of mythological parallels, and I believe that it is precisely this subversive engagement with myth, fairy tale, and countless other literary texts that sets this collection apart from the earlier ones.
*Ιnterview by Athina Rossoglou
TAGS: LITERATURE & BOOKS | READING GREECE
