THE EAST END (Eleni N. Galani, translated by John P.A. Ioannidis)

Author: GALANI, ELENI N.
Translator: IOANNIDIS, JOHN P.A.
Published: 2025
ISBN: 978-9600455632
Pages: 72

From a synopsis by Lina Stefanou, editor-in-chief of the NOMAS literary magazine: I like the books that travel you and Eleni Galani's book travels you not only to different places but also to different times of these places. It starts with coordinates. Mytilene, Berlin, Ostend. Then it takes you by the hand and introduces you to people you would not know, people who time turned into symbols. From the translator and university writer Tatiana Gnedich who was arrested in '44 on a fabricated charge to Irianna, a Greek student who was recently arrested and jailed while the charges against her are unfounded. From Homer and Exekias to the archaeological director of the Palmyra Museum Khaled al-Asaad. From Judith of Bethulia to the legend of Sigurd. From Mytilene to Ostend, Eleni crosses the historical space of geographical maps and reads the fate of humanity on the body of Europe. In her path she engages with whatever she considers important. The paintings of Picasso, Ensor and Egon Schiele. Wilhelm Gustloff, the ocean liner of the Nazis. The paradox of Olbers. Bergman. The lost languages ​​and the sunken cities. But mainly the words and their ambiguity. The East End is not a happy book. Maybe because it has something of the dark atmosphere of interwar Germany. But it is a book whose rhythm passes subcutaneously through the skin and stays there to wake you up like an internal clock that has a different beat than that of our daily lives. It is neither motivating nor instructive poetry, nor feminine as critics often like to categorize when they do not know what else to write. It is a historical record with the composure of an archaeologist that ends up being articulated like the Scream of Munch that we have all heard. Through her words Galani talks about the stateless people to whom the book is dedicated. It speaks of the fact that in our time we are all Nomads. She talks about the lost homelands. For the war that, apart from people, destroyed ancient cities, history and memory.