Short stories
Για ένα φιλότιμο
Not translated into English
Yorgos Ioannou · 1964
Synopsis
Twenty-two short texts, in the first person, in which Thessaloniki keeps coming back: the refugee neighbourhoods where the narrator grew up, with their customs, then the alleys, the shady cafés and the Jewish tombs of the post-war city. Elsewhere, in the provinces or abroad where he teaches, the city ceases to be a presence and remains only a backdrop.
Context
The twenty-two short texts of the book were written from 1961 to 1964, first at Kastrí in Kynouria, where the author had received his first post, then in Benghazi, where he was afterwards sent for two years. The first five appeared in early 1962 in the Thessaloniki review Diagónios. With this book, the author moved for good from verse to prose. The word in the title, philótimo, has no French equivalent. There is no French edition.
Who it is for
Twenty-two texts of a few pages each, never rendered into French. It helps to know that Thessaloniki lost almost its entire Jewish population during the Occupation.
Prizes and reception
The first prose book by its author, in which he established a thoroughly personal manner that several prose writers coming after him have drawn on; it is set for the national examinations.