Poems about people and places. People who breathe their last in a city, yet the pavements, the squares, the flats where they drew their final breath remain in their place and cry out in silence. Poems based on true accounts of deaths in post-war Thessaloniki, with references to the date and exact address where they occurred.
Others walk through these public spaces today, unaware; others sleep carefree in the very same rooms, carefree tenants or new owners. ‘Memory kaput’, as the verse of one of the poems puts it. Yet the art of poetry is built upon these ‘scum of oblivion’. And it strives to commemorate whatever it can. Can it?
- Pages: 40
- ISBN: 978-960-9527-71-2
- Publication: 2013
- Dimensions: 17 x 23
- Categories: Literature, Books, Poetry
Sakis Serefas
Sakis Serfas was born in 1960 in Thessaloniki, where he lives. He studied Medieval and Modern Greek Literature at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
In 2000, he was accepted by Columbia University in New York as a Fulbright scholar, where he attended a series of courses in the Department of Classical Studies relating to Modern Greek Language, History and Literature.
To date, he has published 50 books comprising poetry, prose, plays, studies on cities, places and poets, translations and anthologies.
He has written 13 plays which have been staged at the National Theatre, the State Theatre of Northern Greece, the Athens-Epidaurus Festival, the Philippi-Kavala Festival, the ‘Karolos Koun’ Art Theatre, at the ‘Techni’ Experimental Stage, at the Tristan Bates Theatre (London, in English translation) and elsewhere.
Mam’s play was honoured with the Modern Greek Play Award ‘Karolos Koun 2007’ by the Union of Greek Theatre Critics. His play Melted Butter was presented as a recommendation by the Ministry of Culture at the Sarajevo International Festival (2012). His play Mission to Planet Earth was awarded the Ministry of Culture Prize for 2007.
His play The Road Will Take You is included in the European Theatre Convention’s (ETC, 2010) list of ‘The 120 Best Contemporary European Plays’.
His book *A Dinosaur on My Balcony* was awarded the State Prize for Children’s Non-Fiction Books in 2008.
The book *Thessaloniki in the First Person* (texts: Sakis Serfas, photographs: from the archive of Haris Giakoumis) was awarded the Milos Prize for the best Greek photography book at the 5th Kythira Photography Meeting in 2006, by the Kythira Cultural Society, and was translated into French by Kallimages.
He wrote the screenplay for the film Rouleman (feature film, directed by Panos Karkanevatos, 2004), which was screened at the 46th Thessaloniki International Film Festival (2005) and at the Cannes Film Festival’s film market (2005).
