Time is just a toy. And Athens is everywhere”: Menis Koumandareas and the city

Menis Koumandareas is one of the most distinctive voices in Greek postwar literature. His heroes are people of all ages, genders, ethnicities and classes who go through their lives trapped in unfulfilled desires and personal frustrations. The pages of his twenty-four books are graced by the presence of stars and anti-stars, misfits, castaways and shipwrecks, all fragile like the defective glassware of his Glass Factory. Koumandareas turns his sharp eye on the “falling” people of this city, their defeats and dashed dreams. More than a mere backdrop, Athens acts as a living organism that shapes and often cages his characters, just like any other city, real or imaginary. With perceptiveness and a touch of noir atmosphere, Koumandareas tells the stories of people who live on the margins of society and slip through life like shadows, his sympathy for them both obvious and contagious. In this moving tribute, Theodoros Grigoriadis, Eliana Hourmouziadou, Christos Chryssopoulos and Maria Fakinou will reintroduce readers to the remarkable work of Menis Koumandareas.