Aiora Books

At once intensely Greek and a cosmopolitan of his time, 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.

📖 'Novel and Other Poems' by George Seferis is translated by Roderick Beaton and is available now from all reputable UK bookstores and online retailers

📚 For more information, click below:

https://www.aiorabooks.com/product/novel-and-other-poems/

Aiora Books in multiple languages in Kyparissi

📖 Find Greek Modern Classics, the Pocket Greek Library and more on our website: www.aiorabooks.com

📚 All English titles are available now from all reputable UK bookstores and online retailers

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📖 'Selected Poems' by C.P. Cavafy at
Translated by David Connolly

📚 You can also get a copy from all reputable UK bookstores and online retailers. For more information, click below:

https://www.aiorabooks.com/product/c-p-cavafy-selected-poems/

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'The gods are by no means dead'

Start your week with Cavafy

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📖 'Selected Poems' of Cavafy is translated by David Connolly and is available now from all reputable UK bookstores and online retailers

📚 For more information, click below:

https://www.aiorabooks.com/product/c-p-cavafy-selected-poems/

Cavafy in multiple languages.

Which language have you read him in?

📖 'Selected Poems' of Cavafy is translated into English by David Connolly and is available now from all reputable UK bookstores and online retailers

📚 For more information, click below:

https://www.aiorabooks.com/product/c-p-cavafy-selected-poems/

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Antonis Samarakis pictured in a bookstore in Athens in 1972

📖 Read his novel 'The Flaw'. Translated by Simon Darragh. Available now from all reputable UK bookstores and online retailers

📚 For more information, click below:

https://www.aiorabooks.com/product/the-flaw/

'The Great Chimera' is a complex exploration of the inerplay between s*x and gender.

"Men in the book see Marina in that way - woman as a menace - projecting onto women what men themselves are complicit in."

Patricia Felisa Barbeito

📖 'The Great Chimera' by M. Karagatsis is translated by Patricia Felisa Barbeito and is available now from all reputable UK bookstores and online retailers

📚 For more information, click below:

https://www.aiorabooks.com/product/the-great-chimera/

'The Great Chimera' questions how you negotiate the pull of Eros; the irrational drive and hunger that its characters have.

Karagatsis plays with the form of Greek tragedy, reworking Medea.

📖 'The Great Chimera' by M. Karagatsis is translated by Patricia Felisa Barbeito and is available now from all reputable UK bookstores and online retailers

📚 For more information, click below:

https://www.aiorabooks.com/product/the-great-chimera/

Sunday Reading 📚💙

What do you read more of: novels or poetry?

📖 'The Great Chimera' by M. Karagatsis is translated by Patricia Felisa Barbeito

📖 'Never Go to the Post Office Alone' by Stelios Kouloglou is translated by Joshua Barley

📖 'Novel and Other Poems' by George Seferis is translated by Roderick Beaton

📖 'Reflections' by Andreas Laskaratos is translated by Simon Darragh

Titles are available now from all reputable UK bookstores and online retailers

📚 For more information, click below:

https://www.aiorabooks.com/

🇬🇷 'Rebetika: Songs from the Old Greek Underworld' in Folegandros

What are you reading over the summer break?

📖 'Rebetika: Songs from the Old Greek Underworld' is edited by Katharine Butterworth and Sara Schneider. Available now from all reputable UK bookstores and online retailers

📚 For more information, click below:

https://www.aiorabooks.com/product/rebetika-songs-from-the-old-greek-underworld/

✔️ 🍉
✔️ ☕️
✔️ 📖 'The Art of Greek Cooking'

Have you got your copy?

📖 'The Art of Greek Cooking' is available now from all reputable UK bookstores and online retailers

📚 For more information, click below:

https://www.aiorabooks.com/product/the-art-of-greek-cooking/

The 'Statue of Lord Byron' by Georgios Vitalis in the Achilleion, Corfu

📌 The Achilleion (1889-1892) is one of the most famous royal villas in Europe and perhaps the most important attraction of Corfu. It is located in the settlement of Gastouri, about 10 km south of the old town. The villa was built on the site of the Brailas country villa by the Empress of Austria Elisabeth as her summer palace in a classic design by the Italian architects Raffaele Caritto and Antonio Landi. Out of her love for Homer, she dedicated the mansion to Achilles, the protagonist of the
Odyssey. In due course she enriched the courtyard of the villa with statues from ancient Greek mythology.

📖 Byron cemented a place for himself in Greek history with his contribution to the Greek Revolution. Read more in 'The Greek Revolution of 1821 and its Global Significance' by Roderick Beaton

Available now from all reputable UK bookstores and online retailers

📚 For more information, click below:

https://www.aiorabooks.com/product/the-greek-revolution-of-1821-and-its-global-significance/

Aiora Books spotted at the new iteration of in Santorini 🇬🇷

What are you reading this weekend?

📖 Our titles are also available now from all reputable UK bookstores and online retailers

📚 For more information, click below:

https://www.aiorabooks.com

Aiora Books spotted in Anafi .anafi 🇬🇷

We love seeing your holiday (book) pictures! If you see Aiora Books on your travels, share it with us!

You can find our titles in independent bookstores across Greece!

📖 Also available in UK bookstores and from online retailers

📚 To see our online catalogue, click below:

https://www.aiorabooks.com

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August is Women in Translation Month, so what better time to read Margerita Liberaki!

Already read Kafka and Dostoyevsky?

Why not try 'The Other Alexander' by Margarita Liberaki?

Hailed by Albert Camus as “true poetry,” Liberaki’s sharp, riveting prose, with its echoes of Kafka, consolidates her place in European literature. Con­sidered one of Greece’s most distinctive voices, Margarita Liberaki is essential reading.

📖 Translated by Willis and Eli Barnstone and available now from all reputable UK bookstores and online retailers.

📚 For more info, click below:

https://www.aiorabooks.com/product/the-other-alexander/

Please note that the Aiora Bookstore will be closing for a short summer break from August 12-19. All online orders placed during that period will be fulfilled from the 20th when the bookshop reopens.

Have a lovely summer ☀️

"On this site stood the house where Lord Byron resided for four months before he joined the Greek garrison in Missolonghi, where he died in April 1824.

Greece Remembers"

📖 Read more about Byron and the Greek revolution in 'The Greek Revolution of 1821 and its Global Significance' by Roderick Beaton. Available now from all reputable UK bookstores and online retailers

📚 For more information, click below:

https://www.aiorabooks.com/product/the-greek-revolution-of-1821-and-its-global-significance/

Aiora Books 💙

📖 'Greek Folk Tales' is translated by Alexander Zaphiriou

📖 'Myths Behind Words: Greek Mythology in English Words and Expressions' is a bilingual edition (Greek: English)

📚 Both titles are available now from all reputable UK bookstores and online retailers

For more information, click below:

✨️ https://www.aiorabooks.com/product/greek-folk-tales/

✨️ https://www.aiorabooks.com/product/myths-behind-words/

📌It was on 21 July 1928, that one of Greece's major poets, Kostas Karyotakis ended his life in Preveza. 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.

In a recently published bilingual edition titled "Ballad for the Unsung Poets of the Ages" (Aiora, 2024), selected and prose of Karyotakis are made available for English-speaking readers. Masterfully translated by Simon Darragh, they convey the main traits of his , which combines reverie with sarcasm, a stifling sense of every­day reality with poignant irony. This is verse that is both piercing and resonant.

Aiora Books

Poetry of the Month: ‘Ballad for the Unsung Poets of the Ages’ by Kostas Karyotakis 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. In a recently published bilingual edition titled Balla...

📚📚Οne of the most distinguished translators of modern Greek literature, David Connolly, spoke to Reading Greece about his love for Greek and culture, the major challenges when translating Greek literature in English, and the role of as cultural ambassadors fostering understanding between peoples and cultures.

"Apart from its importance for the transmission of literary works, has always been instrumental in the dissemination of knowledge, religion and in general. Languages and cultures are promoted by the process of interaction and osmosis and one of the most effective means in this process is translation. Translators are, by definition, linguistic and cultural and should be recognised as such".

Reading Greece: David Connolly – “Translators are, by definition, linguistic and cultural ambassadors and should be recognised as such” David Connolly was born in Sheffield, England, and is of Irish descent. He studied Ancient Greek at the University of Lancaster, Medieval and Modern Greek Literature at Trinity College, Oxford, and received his doctoral degree for a thesis on the theory and practice of Literary Translation f...

"My deep love of the Greek language and of Greek literature motivated my desire to want to share what I considered to be gems of Greek literature with an English-speaking readership and to give the Greek poets and authors that had moved me a place on the international stage. This was always and continues to be the driving force behind my professional work."

David Connolly, Aiora translator, on the art of translation in Reading Greece.

📖 His latest translation, 'The Rock Song of Our Tomorrow' by Dionysis Savvopoulos is available now from all reputable UK bookstores and online retailers

📚 For more information, click below:

https://www.aiorabooks.com/product/the-rock-song-of-our-tomorrow-english-edition/

Aiora translator, Gilles Decovert, is playing the role of Socrates in a forthcoming theatrical adaptation.

THE RECREATION OF THE TRIAL OF SOCRATES
In the ancient Greek language of Plato,
in interpretational teaching & direction by Dimos Avdeliodis.

With subtitles in Modern Greek & English.

Gilles Decorvet in the role of Socrates.
Marcos Palaios in the role of Melitos.

Following the triumphant reception from both audiences and critics of the October 2023, January 2024, and April 2024 performances, two more performances are set to take place.

📆 Sunday 4 August, on
📍Thymaina island, near Icaria

📆 Wednesday 7 August
📍Oinousses island, near Chios

🎟 https://www.festivalvraxon.gr/show.php?id=49

is reading 'Greek Folk Songs' for a poetic and musical journey through Greece.

What are you reading?

📖 'Greek Folk Songs' is translated by Joshua Barley and is available now from all reputable UK bookstores and online retailers

📚 For more information, click below:

https://www.aiorabooks.com/product/greek-folk-songs/

"I am speaking . . . of the power of the metaphor to only retain their essence, and to bring them to such a state of purity that their metaphysical significance appears like a revelation."

Odysseus Elytis on the luminosity of language.

📷 Henri Cartier-Bresson

📖 'In the Name of Luminosity and Transparency' by Odysseus Elytis is available now from all reputable UK bookstores and online retailers

📚 For more information, click below:

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Ours too!

" . . . even now
as I write, after so many years,
in my lonely house, I'm in ecstasy again."

📖 'Selected Poems' by Cavafy is translated by David Connolly and is available now from all reputable UK bookstores and online retailers

📚 For more information, click below:

https://www.aiorabooks.com/product/c-p-cavafy-selected-poems/

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"Blurred lines between mythology and real life. The perception and transformation of our Gods through a universal set of eyes and hearts."

Goodreads Review

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📖 'The Great Chimera' by M. Karagatsis is translated by Patricia Felisa Barbeito and is available now from all reputable UK bookstores and online retailers

📚 For more information, click below:

https://www.aiorabooks.com/product/the-great-chimera/

Cavafy was admired by E. M. Forster, W. H. Auden, T. S. Eliot, Leonard and Virginia Woolf, and David Hockney. Cavafy's "unique tone of voice" (Auden) has been captivating readers for a century.

📖 'Selected Poems' of Cavafy is translated by David Connolly and is available now from all reputable UK bookstores and online retailers

📚For more information, click below:

https://www.aiorabooks.com/product/c-p-cavafy-selected-poems/

Greek poet who inspired Forster, Hockney and Jackie Onassis emerges from the shadows The writer Constantine Cavafy was largely unpublished in his lifetime, but was revered by artists. His archive and Alexandrian home are now on show for the first time

"Karagatsis is playfully and strategically playing with conventions of writing. There is the notion of hubris, of being trapped by fate. An element of folk tales appears, the fates come in; we have strange collisions of literary conventions that give us different ways of seeing the world. As an ancient tragedy, the characters move beyond the individual."

Patricia Felisa Barbeito

📖 'The Great Chimera' by M. Karagatsis is translated by Patricia Felisa Barbeito and is available now from all reputable UK bookstores and online retailers

📚 For more information, click below:

https://www.aiorabooks.com/product/the-great-chimera/

"Marina is a Madame Bovary - a woman trapped in marriage."

Patricia Felisa Barbeito

Marina is like Flaubert's Emma Bovary, one of literature's greatest protagonists.

📖 'The Great Chimera' by M. Karagatsis is translated by Patricia Felisa Barbeito and is available now from all reputable UK bookstores and online retailers

📚 For more information, click below:

https://www.aiorabooks.com/product/the-great-chimera/

"'The Great Chimera' is a book about the struggle of Greek modernity with the weight of the past." Patricia Felisa Barbeito

Have you read it yet?

📖 'The Great Chimera' by M Karagatsis is translated by Patricia Felisa Barbeito and is available now from all reputable UK bookstores and online retailers

📚 For more information, click below:

https://www.aiorabooks.com/product/the-great-chimera/