The Demons of Athens

Book excerpt: The narrator of the book starts a journey of discovery around the meaning of home, in a diary form, with a trip to Athens in the midst of the economic and social implosion of the country. He fuses fiction, reportage and autobiography in an attempt to illustrate the social collapse of Greece after 2009 and its subsequent lack of creative imagination. The book consists of brief snapshots based on episodes that take place in Athens, ranging from people eating rotten food in garbage bins, to contemporary political discussions at the Greek Parliament and the representation of the struggle of ordinary people to make their living. “This is a courageous, angry and powerful book, in which like James Joyce, Vrasidas Karalis can be said to have written ‘a chapter in the moral history of my race’.” -Nicholas Murray, British biographer, poet and journalist