Wednesday 23 February 2022 18:30
Monday 28 February 2022 18:30
In February, the SNFCC Book Club meetings continue, moderated by poet and translator Krystalli Glyniadaki, and now also available online!
On the last Monday of the month, February 28, book lovers hold their standing appointment at the SNFCC Book Castle to discuss the book they read during the past month.
In addition, the meeting will also take place online, on Wednesday, February 23, via Zoom!
The circle of readers grows, and they will all have the opportunity to once again share experiences, feelings and ideas, as well as to make new friends and exchange viewpoints, prompted by the book of the month.
Book of the month for February : The Monogram, by Odysseus Elytis
A few more words about the book for February : What is it that makes Odysseus Elytis’s The Monogram one of the most widely read and best loved (long-form) poems of Greek literature? Is it the repetitions of words and phrases that stick in the reader’s mind? Is it its rhetorical deftness, its musicality? Is it its unpretentious and bold erotic voice? Is it its surrealist outlook, which, however, seems to win over even the most skeptical of readers? And how is it possible that such a widely read, much afflicted and ill-treated poem still retains, perhaps forever, its beauty and strength? Is this what great art is? And if so, how do we recognize it? Using our heart, our mind, or perhaps our ear?
All of this and much more will be discussed during our February SNFCC Book Club meeting, which dares, for the first time ever, to heed and celebrate a poem: perhaps one of the most beautiful poems ever written in the Greek language. But we’d rather let you decide on that.
Nobel laureate Odysseus Elytis (pen name of Odysseas Alepoudellis), 1911-1996 , needs no introduction. He is arguably the most widely-talked about modern Greek poet (along with Constantine Cavafy, George Seferis and Yannis Ritsos) and certainly the most recognizable one. The Monogram constitutes a unique achievement in Greek literature: it is a love poem brimming with youthfulness, albeit written by a 60-year-old man, a poem that is empirically understood by anyone who has ever felt the slightest love pang. Which is why we have chosen it as our February read.
A few more words about the moderator:Krystalli Glyniadaki was born in 1979 in Athens. She studied Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, and Political Theory in London, and later Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. She has published three collections of poetry in Greek (all published by Polis), the last of which—Τhe Return of the Dead—received the Greek National Literature Award for Poetry in 2018. She has been an officially invited author to the international Istanbul Book Fair and International Izmir Literature Festival; her poems have been translated into English, Turkish, German, Slovenian and Italian; and her first English-language collection of poetry is to be released in the United Kingdom soon. She works as a translator, mostly of Norwegian literature, and as a book editor, and writes pieces for Norwegian online media. Her latest love is online interactive historical documentaries (i-doc), on which she has just finished her dissertation at Bournemouth University.
Monday 28/02 | 18:30–20:30 NLG BOOK CASTLE
For adults | Up to 30 participants Free participation via online pre-registration
Pre-registration for 28/02, starts on Monday 31/01 at 12.00
Wednesday 23/02 |18.30-20.30 ZOOM
For adults | Up to 50 participants Free participation via online pre-registration
Pre-registration for 23/02, starts on Monday 31/01 at 12.00
Moderator: Krystalli Glyniadaki
Anyone reserving a seat at the Book Club is required to have read the book of the month.
The Monogram, by Odysseus Elytis, is available in Greek from Ikaros Publishing.
To enter the event space is mandatory to demonstrate a certificate of vaccination or illness.
For all cases of an official document demonstration, a parallel identity check of the holder will be carried out.
Due to public health measures, there may be changes regarding either the staging of the event, or the maximum number of participants.
The use of face mask and social distancing measures are mandatory in indoor and outdoor areas of the SNFCC, in accordance with Hellenic National Public Health Organization regulations.
As part of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center's collaboration with the National Library of Greece, the book for December's Reading Club has been chosen by NLG staff members.
