Seven Stories Press

Works of Radical Imagination

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Translated by Mary Kitroeff

Greece's most acclaimed living novelist gives us a magical realist portrait of contemporary Europe and contemporary Europeans. Here are seven tales that explore the themes of materialism, post-Cold War politics, love, religious faith, and the power of imagination. In the tradition of Gabriel García Marqúez and Luigi Pirandello, Vassilis Vassilikos writes of the fantasies within reality, the spirit in existence, and the art within life.

Greece's most acclaimed living novelist gives us a magical realist portrait of contemporary Europe and contemporary Europeans. Here are seven tales that explore the themes of materialism, post-Cold War politics, love, religious faith, and the power of imagination. In the tradition of Gabriel García Marqúez and Luigi Pirandello, Vassilis Vassilikos writes of the fantasies within reality, the spirit in existence, and the art within life.

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“From the metafictional to the fabulous, this evocative tangle of overlapping, intertwining and conflicting stories from the prolific Vassilikos whimsically renders the colors and contradictions of contemporary Greece. Themes of exile and repatriation, personal mythology, political decline, the weight of history, and, ubiquitously, the importance of dreaming resonate through a deceptively lighthearted narrative … Vassilikos's singular mixture of self-consciousness, naturalism, allegory and caprice results in fiction both provocative and entertaining.”

“This collection of short fiction but the author of Z presents magical realism at its best … A narrative tour de force.”

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Born in Thasos, Greece, in 1933, Vassilis Vassilikos is one of Greece’s most acclaimed novelists, having published more than ninety books, including novels, short stories, essays, poetry, and plays. His novel Z was first published in Paris in 1967, was adapted for film by Costa-Gavras, and has been translated into thirty-two languages. Among them, The Few Things I Know About Glafkos Thrassakis is taught throughout universities in Greece as a contemporary classic. Vassilikos lives in Paris and Athens.