Category: Reading Greece

📚📚On the occasion of the publication of his book "Light in dark times: the Greek-Roman culture" in Greek (Εκδόσεις Εστία, 2025) and his translation of Christos Vakalopoulos' "Τhe line of the horizon" into Italian (Edizioni Medhelan, 2025), philhellene writer, essayist and translator Francesco Colafemmina spoke to Reading Greece about the relevance of the Greek-Roman civilization today, the challenges of translating Greek #literature into Italian and the crucial role of #translators in letting " more people know this literature, know the lyricism of Greek Literature, understand the story of modern Greece and fall in love with the diachronic #Hellenism".

🦈☀️⛵️⛱#Summer has always been a favourite theme in contemporary Greek poetry. It often embodies more than just a season—it reflects memory, identity, desire, and the tension between tradition and modernity. Contemporary Greek #poets often use summer to evoke childhood memories, lost loves, or a simpler past. The heat, the sea, and the Greek islands serve as backdrops for emotional reflection. The Greek summer is inextricably linked with the sea—calm or wild, it becomes a symbol of both freedom and existential depth. The #Aegean often takes on mythic or almost sacred qualities.

BODY OF SUMMER by Odysseas Elytis

A long time has passed since the last rain was heard
Above the ants and lizards
Now the sun burns endlessly
The fruit paints its mouth
The pores in the earth open slowly
And beside the water that drips in syllables
A huge plant gaze into the eye of the sun.
Who is he that lies on the shores beyond
Stretched on his back, smoking silver-burnt olive leaves?
Cicadas grow warm in his ears
Ants are at work on his chest
Lizards slide in the grass of his armpits
And over the seaweed of his feet a wave rolls lightly
Sent by the little siren that sang:
O body o summer, naked, burnt
Eaten away by oil and salt
Body of rock and shudder of the heart
Great ruffling wind in the osier hair
Beneath of basil above the curly pubic mound
Full of stars and pine needles
Body, deep vessel of the day!
Soft rains come, violent hail
The land passes lashed in the claws of snow-storm
Which darkens in the depths with furious waves
The hills plunge into the dense udders of the clouds
And yet behind all this you laugh carefree
And find your deathless moment again
And the sun finds you again in the sandy shores
As the sky finds you again in your naked health.

[Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard]

📚📚Little bookstores constitute an integral part of our culture and our local communities. They are the places that never stop inspiring us, uniting us and spreading the love for books. Their role proves crucial in case they are located in remote areas such as the Greek islands or the Greek countryside.

Reading Greece spoke to Elpida and Dimitris, owners of Σιμούν Βιβλιοπωλείο Καφέ , a beautiful little bookstore in Preveza, Epirus, about the role of little #bookstores and their influence on #reading preferences, as well as the challenges they are faced with and the prospects ahead.