Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki, a bourgeoning metropolis in the north of Greece, has always been in the forefront of literary and linguistic innovation alongside (or sometimes in rivalry against) Athens. The city's rich history from antiquity through the Byzantium era, the Ottoman empire and modern times, has provided local writers with a varied multicultural backdrop for their work.
In recent years, writing in Thessaloniki has come to be associated with a flourishing prose scene that focuses on the mundane nature of everyday reality and adopts a distinctive narrative consciousness that has been termed: "internal monologue". Major figures were Giorgos Ioannou (1927-1984), Stelios Xefloudas (1902-1984), Nikos Gavriil Pentzikis (1908-1993), Nikos Bakolas (1927-1999) and others.
The poetry scene has been equally distinctive and since the early days of emblematic voices such as those of Dinos Christianopoulos (1931-), Manolis Anagnostakis (1925-2005) and Nikos Alexis Aslanoglou (1931-1996), has brought to the forefront groundbreaking new poets such as Vassilis Amanatidis (1970-). Thessaloniki enjoys a long tradition of influential literary journals with national distribution (such as Entefktirio) and a number of local publishing houses, bookshops and regular literary events.
THESSALONIKI ON WIKIPEDIA
News
Word Express in Scotland
9th - 15th August
See a new generation of talented poets and translators Raman Mundair,
Ryan van Wynkle, Marko Pogačar,
Found in Translation
"I’ve got this sickly taste in my mouth... "
an extract and video from Sian Melangell Dafydd's
The Third Thing
"Sitting up on the bed, you strain and plunge like a frogman among
wobbegong dorsal fins."
three poems from Radu Vancu