France | Greece | Hybrid Fiction | Modern Greek
October, 2020“λ” (for λιβελούλα, “libellula” or dragonfly) is one of the 24 chapters of Insect Alphabet (Αλφαβητάρι Εντόμων), each corresponding to a letter of the Greek alphabet and the initial of the name of an insect. Originally published in Greek (Patakis Publishers, 2018), this work cuts across the genres of novel and short story, and provides a glimpse into Europe from the Second World War to the present time, exploring violence, isolation, and the challenge of European identity. Famous or anonymous, no matter whether placed in a picturesque Greek island or in the Calais Jungle, in Paris, Vienna, Jerusalem, or Edinburgh, each of the main characters has an important encounter with an insect. Homeric heroines, Sappho, Rimbaud, Alban Berg, Jung, Pasolini, as well as anthropological material (“telling the bees” when the beekeeper dies, or the presumed affiliation between snakes and dragonflies), children’s questions (“Why don’t insects live in the sea?”), medical discoveries, the story of the loss and the resurfacing of a pioneer lepidopterist’s work that curiously unites the United States and the Soviet Union, have jointly contributed to forming the cocoon of this entomological alphabet that is inspired by the many faces of Europe, those enchanting and those disenchanting, and those that are both at once.
I translated “λ” into English, along with a few other chapters, after the book was awarded two prizes in Greece: the 2019 State Literary Award and the 2019 Anagnostis literary prize.
- Dimitra Kolliakou
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