Search results for ""aiora press""

?Great historical events are never anonymous -- they sweep anyone in their path into the fray. Kevin Danaher, a foreign correspondent in Moscow, will discover exactly that, as he queues at the city's central post office one morning in 1989, waiting to send a fax to his newspaper in New York. How could he know that the beautiful East German woman standing in front of him was the means chosen by fate to throw him onto the stage of world history? With the Soviet Union collapsing and the Berlin Wall about to fall, this moment of history would change the world, and Kevin's life, forever. Stelios Kouloglou, himself a correspondent in Moscow at the time, blends fact and fiction in this compelling political thriller, as he guides us through the human side of history.

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It is the eve of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, and Chrysovalantis -- a chronically unsuccessful but enthusiastic employee of the publishing industry -- has been put out of work yet again. He begins a vitriolic monologue, taking aim at his many persecutors, from cruel bosses to opportunistic women to embar­rassing, crippling illnesses. An aging relic of a bygone era, hounded by the challenges of a fast-changing city, he nonetheless sees the irony of his plight. Vice-ridden yet God-fearing, family-loving yet swindled even by his own sisters, this repentant anti-hero will set his record straight once and for all. And God is his witness.

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This illustrated history of paper invites children to jump aboard a paper boat that travels from China to Samarkand, Mexico to Paris, and many stops in between to see how paper was created. Famous Greek children's author Sofia Zarampouka chronicles the unfolding story of papermaking, taking us to meet the people who discovered, invented and designed each new step along the way. With a mix of history and geography, she entertains and informs young readers about the thousand-year journey of paper, from ancient pulp and plant fibre to the book you hold in your hands today. Hop aboard and discover how this ancient invention transformed the world and continues to make our lives more creative and beautiful. Sofia Zarampouka is a beloved author and illustrator of over sixty children's books. Her work has won many national and international awards, and has been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world.

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A man is seized from his afternoon drink at the Cafe Sport by two agents of the Regime -- though what exactly he is suspected of we do not know, and neither, apparently, does he. What follows is a journey by car toward Special Branch Headquarters, and the interrogation that undoubtedly awaits him there. With their destination approaching, oppressed and oppressor come face to face with their deepest human feeling, locked in a game of psychological skill. As the plot slowly unravels, so, too, do its main players. Part thriller and part political satire, The Flaw is as powerful today as it was when first published in 1965, foretelling the military dictatorship that would take hold of Greece only two years later. It is the best-known work of Antonis Samarakis and has been translated into more than thirty languages, winning the prestigious 1970 Grand Prix de Litterature Poiliciere in France. This new translation marks the fiftieth anniversary of the novels publication in English.

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Roïdes' irreverent, witty and delightful novel tells the story of Joan who, according to a popular medieval legend, ascended to the Papal Throne as Pope John VIII. The truth of the legend is of little importance as the book is far more than a historical novel and, in fact, parodies the popular historical romances of the time. In Joan, Roïdes has created one of the most remarkable characters in modern Greek literature and in so doing has assured his place as one of its classic authors.

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The poetry of Odysseus Elytis owes as much to the ancients and Byzantium, as to the surrealists of the 1930s and the architecture of the Cyclades, bringing romantic modernism and structural experimentation to Greece. Collected here are the two speeches Elytis gave on his acceptance of the 1979 Nobel Prize for Literature, which are still strikingly relevant today. He addresses a hypertrophic and atrophic Europe in moral chaos, with as many coexisting values as languages-and to this he offers the "common language" that is found in poetry, in art, and in their base materials of sense, aesthetic, intuition. Ultimately, his is a powerful ode to beauty amid utilitarianism, and the need for poetry as "the art of approaching that which surpasses us" and "puts us at the threshold of the deepest truth".

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?Happiness is not a comfortable state of well-being, but an energetic and carefully considered endeavour to lead a rich and meaningful life. Few books are so suited to stimulating critical thought about the good life as Aristotle?'s Nicomachean Ethics. What makes the Ethics so appealing is that Aristotle always remains realistic, in spite of his high ideals, and is constantly testing his views against those of others. In Book X of the Ethics, included in this volume, the great philosopher discusses what happiness [eudaimonia] is and how to achieve it. (BILINGUAL EDITION)

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"Of all existing things, some are in our power, and others are not in our power." So begins the Enchiridion or Manual on the Art of Living of Epictetus, a collection of precepts that together provide a powerful philosophy for daily life. With practical grace and wisdom, the Manual addresses living with integrity, self-management, and personal freedom. The Manual is considered to be the pinnacle of Stoic philosophy, a school of Greek thought originating in the early third century BC, that holds that destructive emotions are the result of errors in judgement and taught an active relationship between individual will and cosmic determinism.

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Eager to flee the parochialism of her French upbringing, and a painful family past, the young and beautiful Marina falls in love with a seductive Greek sea-captain she meets at the port of Rouen. She follows him to the Aegean island of Syros to begin a new life as a married woman in the home of her formidable mother-in-law. Enchanted by the beauty of her surroundings, and fascinated by her husband's erudite younger brother, she aspires to learn all she can about contemporary Greek culture and live up to the ideals of her classical education. But when disaster upends her husband's shipping business and the comfortable stability of their life together, Marina's world slides into a vicious circle of love, passion, and death. Set in the early decades of the twentieth century, this is an exquisite account of the inner life of the heroine, and the collisions of different cultures and ways of being. In prose that ranges from the lyrical to the tersely realist, Karagatsis weaves a classic tale that is wide-ranging in its literary references, and devastating in its psychological nuance. This modern Greek tragedy has been made into a TV series and a highly acclaimed stage play, enjoying three sold-out seasons in Athens, and an international tour.

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Georgios Vizyenos (1849-1896) is one of Greece's best-loved writers. His stories, written in 1883-4, are set in his native Thrace, a corner of Europe where Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey meet. Each title poses an enigma: Where did Yorgis' grandfather travel on his only journey? What was Yorgis' mother's sin? Who was responsible for his brother's murder? At the end of each story the narrator possesses some knowledge that forces him - and his readers - to revise their earlier assumptions, which were based on incomplete knowledge. Because Vizyenos wants us to experience the difficult transition from ignorance to knowledge, he leaves us in suspense until the very end. Vizyenos' stories evoke a time when individual Greeks and Turks could share each other's joys and pains despite the hostile relations between their governments.

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Greek folk tales descend from Aesop and Greek antiquity, as well as medieval storytelling in the pivotal south-east Mediterranean world that linked Christianity, Islam and Byzantium. These tales, told by folk narrators throughout Greek-speaking regions up to our times, are wondrous, whimsical stories about doughty youths and frightful monsters, resourceful maidens and animals gifted with human speech. The tales weave substantive motifs, characters, and forms into a rich tapestry capturing the temperament and ethos of the Greek folk psyche. ?The folk tales included in this volume were collected in the late-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century. They were found in Greek-speaking lands, including Asia Minor and Cyprus. A few have been borrowed from traditions beyond Greece, while some have come down to us from antiquity, including Aesop-like fables with speaking animal characters.

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The Greek folk songs "Dimotika Tragoudia in Greek" are songs of the Greek countryside, from island towns to mountain villages. They have been passed down from generation to generation in a centuries-long oral tradition, lasting until the present. They are songs of every aspect of old Greek life: from love songs and ballads, to laments for the dead, to songs of travel and brigands. Written down at the start of the nineteenth century, they are the first works of modern Greek poetry, playing a crucial role in forming the country's modern language and literature. Still known and sung today, they are the Homer of modern Greece. This new translation brings the songs to an English readership for the first time in over a century, capturing the lyricism of the Greek in modern English verse. Foreword by A.E. Stallings, American poet and translator.

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Pythagoras (ca 585 BC 495 BC), a a philosopher, mathematician and musical theoretician wrote nothing down during the course of his life, not even the Theorem attributed to him. And yet his knowledge and wisdom changed the world, and have survived through the ages to benefit us today. The essence of Pythagoras teachings is contained in TheGolden Verses, seventy-one verses constituting guidelines on how to live. Functioning as admonitions, they link the human with the divine element and determine the point at which both converge to reveal how we might ourselves attain this supreme virtue in our everyday lives.

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Cook like a Greek! Savour delightful, nourishing dishes and enjoy a healthy diet, the Mediterranean way! An easy to follow, step by step guide to cooking traditional, delicious and nutritious dishes that have stood the test of time. The Art of Greek Cooking has something for everyone. Whether cooking for every day or for a special occasion, add flavour to life and bring Greece to your plate!

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Smyrna, September 1922: A young Anatolian Greek is taken prisoner at the end of the Greek-Turkish war and marched off into the interior. He recounts his escape and heart-stopping journey through the familiar landscape of his lost homeland, where his ability to pass as a Muslim Turk reveals the common culture shared by the different communities of the crumbling Ottoman empire. A classic tale of survival in a time of nationalist conflict, A Prisoner of War's Story is a beautifully crafted and pithy narrative. Affirming the common humanity of peoples, it earns its place among Europe's finest anti-war literature of the post-world war I period.

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Derided and maligned more than any other Greek artist for his innovative and, at the time, often incomprehensible modernist experiments, Engonopoulos is today justifiably regarded as one of the most original artists of his generation and as a unique figure in Greek letters. Though he considered himself first a painter and only afterwards a poet, his poetry is widely read and admired, with many critical studies of his work appearing in recent years and with a growing recognition of its value and of its creative use of the Greek tradition and language. He enriched post-war Greek poetry with a host of poetic expressions, figures and images that have come to constitute part of the Greek poetic consciousness. In both his painting and poetry, he created a peculiarly Greek surrealism, a blending of the Dionysian and Apollonian, though always in keeping with basic surrealist tenets and, as such, his work is an important and original contribution not only to Modern Greek art and poetry but also to modern art and poetry worldwide.

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Andreas Laskaratos (1811-1901), a prominent figure in modern Greek letters, was a writer and poet, a social thinker and, in many ways, a controversialist. A life-long enemy of hypocrisy wherever he found it, on many occasions he turned against politicians, while he ceaselessly fought against corruption and religious prejudice and fanaticism. Much of his writing is savagely satirical, but his Reflections set out calmly, clearly and wittily his uncompromising and finely reasoned beliefs. As the essence of his thought they could be read with profit by present-day politicians and teachers of any nationality, and indeed by everybody with an interest in social and moral questions.

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Fey Folk is characteristic of Papadiamandiss work. Its characters are quaint, simple-hearted folk living their humble lives in accordance with centuries-old traditions and customs, delightfully described by Papadiamandis with both reverence and humour. The setting is the hinterland of his native island of Skiathos with its intoxicating vegetation, its hillsides, springs and ravines, where the belief in spirits and the supernatural is deeply rooted in the consciousness of the otherwise God-fearing and devout inhabitants. Generally recognized as one of the foremost Greek prose writers of the modern period, Alexandros Papadiamandis holds a special place in the history of modern Greek letters, but also in the heart of the ordinary Greek reader.

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Often compared during his lifetime to T.S. Eliot, whose work he translated and introduced to Greece, George Seferis is noted for his spare, laconic, dense and allusive verse in the Modernist idiom of the first half of the twentieth century. At once intensely Greek and a cosmopolitan of his time (he was a career-diplomat as well as a poet), Seferis better than any other writer expresses the dilemma experienced by his countrymen then and now: how to be at once Greek and modern. The translations that make up this volume are the fruit of more than forty years, and many are published here for the first time.

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"That one came alone, from some place else. He came slowly, following his own path. A white angel with jet-black wings!"Kostas Karyotakis is the poet most emblematic of the turbulent interwar period in Greece. Though traditional in form, usually with end-rhyme and regular metres, Karyotakis' poetry is modern in content, often pessimistic and bitingly satirical. His writing combines reverie with sarcasm, a stifling sense of every­day reality with poignant irony. This is verse that is both piercing and resonant.

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First published in the 1950s to international acclaim, Margarita Liberaki's allegorical novel, The Other Alexander, speaks to the opposing forces inherent in human nature. This exquisite poetic drama reenacts Greek tragedy in its evocation of a country riven by civil war and a family divided against itself. A tyrannical father leads a double life; he has two families and gives the same first names to both sets of children. In an atmosphere of increasing unease and mistrust, the half-siblings meet, love, hate, and betray one another. Embroiled in absurdity, Liberaki's characters must confront their doubles, as individual and collective identity is called into question in this tale of psychological and political haunting. Hailed by Albert Camus as true poetry, Liberaki's sharp, riveting prose, with its echoes of Kafka, consolidates her place in European literature. Con¬sidered one of Greece's most distinctive voices, Margarita Liberaki is essential reading.

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A wealthy count on his deathbed, his libertine nephew, an upstanding young clerk, and a scheming notary who stops at nothing to protect his daughter make The Notary an iconic tale of suspense and intrigue, love and murder. The classic work of Alexandros Rangavis, The Notary, a mystery set on the island of Cephalonia on the eve of the Greek Revolution of 1821, is Modern Greek literatures contribution to the tradition of early crime fiction, alongside E.T.A. Hoffman, Edgar Allan Poe and Wilkie Collins.

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Georgios Vizyenos (1849-1896) is one of Greeces best-loved writers. Moskov Selim is set in Thrace, a corner of Europe where Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria meet. Selim is a Muslim name, yet Moskov implies that he is a Russian. Vizyenos fascinating and moving story is set during a time of constant wars between Russians and Turks whose outcome would decide the future of south-east Europe: Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria were becoming independent of the Ottoman empire, while Greece was to gain huge territories at the empires expense. Although Istanbul would remain in Turkey, it would no longer be the seat of the Ottoman Sultan, who, as caliph, was the leader of the worlds Muslims. Vizyenos story evokes a time when Greeks and Turks could share each others joys and pains despite the hostile relations between their governments. Listening to the protagonists life story, the narrator of Moskov Selim discovers that this Turk is a kindred spirit, despite the gulf of nationality and religion that separates them.

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It has been called the "age of revolution". The white heat of it came in the decades either side of the year 1800. But it lasted a full century: from the American Declaration of Independence in 1776 to the great national "unifications" of Germany and Italy during the 1860s. Right in the middle of this long "age of revolution" and, as it turns out, the pivotal point within it, comes the Greek Revolution that broke out in the spring of 1821. Historians have been slow to recognise the key role of the Greek uprising in 1821, and the international recognition of Greece as a sovereign, independent state nine years later, in 1830, in this process that did so much to shape the geopolitics of the European continent, and indeed of much of the world. This little book sets out to explain what happened during these nine years to bring about such far-reaching (and surely unanticipated) consequences, and why the full significance of these events is only now coming to be appreciated, two hundred years later.

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This novel follows the journey of a group of Greek refugees who were displaced from their homeland in Asia Minor and settled in the summer of 1923 in a desolate corner of the coast, near Athens. Told in the author's characteristic sparse, lyrical style and inspired by his own experience of migration, it details their hatred of war, their love for the nature surrounding them, the hostility of their new neighbours and their struggle to find meaning as they adapt to a new life. Though published in 1937, Serenity is a timely evocation of the eternal condition of the refugee, as seen by a writer with a deeply human eye.

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