Sundays in Summer

"...A single day and a hundred pages are more than enough to tell a story. Unlike the oceanic novel, the novella is the lake that reveals its depths to those who pause to admire it. Right from the title, Semitekolu makes clear her intention to create something different in this, her first and such a beautiful book. Through Marina, her solitary protagonist, the narrative projector highlights the loneliness of a person of this era, akin to that of the deserted city on Sundays in summer."

"...I’m not at all sure whether this story is about something beautiful or something ugly. I can’t decide with certainty whether the heroine is suffering or not, even though the answer is obvious. I’m not even sure whether I read this story or lived it. I am content with precisely that sense of fulfilment I felt as I turned the last page."

"...In the novella _Sundays, the summer_ by Marialena Semitekolou, we are swept away by the languor of the title, methodically lulled by the protagonist’s thoughts and memories, who, of course, by the end of the text has become a familiar figure. In this, her first book, the author describes the profound inner loneliness and melancholy of contemporary Greece."

"...What happens when the imagination is given free rein to reconstruct new worlds within those that already exist? Then we have a heroine who stays at home on Sundays, Marina. An inventive novel that speaks through unpredictable thoughts. From a room from which the whole world opens up. Souls marked by loss that are bound together through an enticing narrative in a whirlwind of sensations, with the city outside howling for yet another round of beautiful illusions."

"Marialena Semitekolou introduces herself to the Greek public with a carefully crafted book full of tenderness. Her writing is playful and captivating, with clarity and immediacy. She attempts to present every aspect and detail of Sundays in summer, coming to terms with her own memories and her own summers."

"...The author, with her concise yet exceptionally dense, moving yet never melodramatic, profound in the way she penetrates the female psyche, and linguistically sensitive novel, offers a literary masterpiece of a study of apathy and, at the same time, a chronicle of alienation, of the self shrinking into a knot of conventional reactions, writhing in agony as it seeks a way out. A particularly interesting debut in fiction."

Interview with Marialena Semitekolou in the ‘Viblio-dromio’ supplement of the newspaper _Ta Nea_.

"...A tiny object, and yet it contains all the magic of life, its good and bad, its joys and melancholy. The first of many books I hope Marialena Semitekolou will write… Small, charming and perhaps a little melancholic, like the last weekend of our holidays."

"...Reading the book _Sundays, in Summer_, we encounter a very powerful female presence, Marina, who dominates every line. The images are all hers; she is the sole director of the summer landscape in which she finds herself trapped."

"...The colour that a literary work possesses—which is nothing other than the exercise of style—in this book, without exaggeration, replaces, without making any particular effort, the author with the main heroine, lived experiences with their prose transformation, and, in conclusion –and most importantly– the author’s fundamental insistence on portraying a woman stripped bare not only of her clothes but also of the vital stimuli that keep her alive, a life that offers not the slightest pleasure."

Read the interview with Marialena Semitekolou by Sofia Politou-Ververi of Nakas bookshops, on the occasion of the publication of her book ‘Sundays, in Summer’.

"It is very important in times of action and relentless plot, which ultimately amount to stagnation, that books do not try to imitate anything beyond themselves. Because the only way to resist pointless action is through thought, even if the circumstances forcing it are unavoidable. This is the case with Marina, who, whether out of necessity, depression, or because the weather dictates it, remains alone at home, in a landscape devoid of action, reminding us exactly what ‘Sundays in summer’ mean."

"...Taking as his starting point the political assassinations of his fellow 20th-century politicians, as well as that of US President John F. Kennedy, the Colombian author invents himself as the narrator and central figure of his book, linking everything to everything else. With the assertion that ‘there are no coincidences’, he both develops and simultaneously undermines conspiracy theories. The attentive reader will also find some parallels with pre-1974 Greece."

"...a book to be read slowly. One where you pause at every paragraph, not only to appreciate the author’s distinctive writing and soak up the images (reading, sight, taste: all a medley), but also because these images awaken just as many of your own. [...] it is well worth reading and I recommend it unreservedly."

"...The dominant element is her thoughts and memories. Not nostalgic, nor oppressive, nor influenced by some fleeting moment. She dredges them up, takes stock of them: loves, friendships, childhood, teenage outbursts, as if she were watching herself in a film, seeing her own reflection. Life passes before her like a documentary and Marina observes it as if watching someone else’s life. [...] A concise, coherent narrative with remarkable literary virtues, despite being a debut work.”

"...There is no action, just as there is none on Sundays in the city during the summer. Marina wanders from the bed to the kitchen, from there to the living room and then to the bathroom and the balcony without thinking of anything serious or specific. _“She opens the fridge, takes the three slices of pizza left over from yesterday, places them on the chopping board and eats them greedily, wandering with a vacant gaze from one room to another. She stands absent-mindedly in front of the balcony door.”_ Marina’s inaction, both internal and external, sometimes evokes in the reader feelings of both concern and sympathy.”