The Last Greek
ORIGINAL TITLE: Den siste greken
AUTHOR: Aris Fioretos
ORIGINAL PUBLISHER: Norstedts förlag
GENRE: Fiction
Meet Yannis Georgiadis – beaming, muscular and with a Robert Mitchum dimple in his chin. One winter’s day in 1967 he steps into the surgical ward in Kristianstad, and ends up staying in Sweden. We meet him as flat-footed
son and dreamy shepherd, as worker, husband and father, but also as motorist on the E70 outside Zagreb one leaden afternoon in November. He plays croquet like a (demi-) god and knows nearly everything about water in its various forms.
Penning the portrait is the fictitious narrator Kostas Kezdoglou. Over a hundred-odd tableaux, he describes the Greek diaspora – from the fire in Smyrna in 1922 until the guest workers of the 1960s. But why write on index cards? And why a biography of his friend Yannis? The Last Greek reveals itself to be a tale of love, friendship and betrayal. As well as of Greeks, of course, who are always “good for a surprise at the last minute”…
Reviews
"A surprising, devastating, and wise novel with a tad of madness, that one wanst to reread as soon as the end has been reached ..."
Sandra Kegel, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Helmut Böttiger, Die Zeit
Rights sold
Dutch Rights sold to Querido
French Rights sold to Actes Sud
German Rights sold to Carl Hanser
Greek Rights sold to Kastaniotis
Norwegian Rights sold to Agora