Stories of what is missing and what is lost, of what remains and what is left over, with blood that stops with the smoke, mud that spreads around souls, and money that bears no fruit.
In the world of Dimitris Nollas, images sometimes take on clarity to vividly depict his recurring themes: the stranger, loneliness, love, the smoke that can do anything, the turning of the mind, the place, identity as memory, the random and the fateful; and at other times they are duplicated to represent the complex relationship between things and people, as well as all the levels of a world that is irrevocably earthly yet open to a metaphysical breath, which, woven into his texts, seems self-evident. He simply shifts space, time and things slightly, creating an atmosphere which, often, even when it resembles a fairy-tale setting, conceals within it a threat or a sense of guilt.
All of this, all of it relevant today more than ever, with an awareness of human frailty and tenderness, with subtle humour, with words that are incisive and full of life precisely because they refuse to be reined in.
T.D.
Author:
Dimitris Nollas
Pages:
88
ISBN:
978-960-9527-50-7
Publication:
2012
Categories:
Literature, Books, Greek Literature
"...The variety of expressive means, the density of meaning, and the fluid narrative of Dimitris Nollas place him, in my view, at the very forefront of our prose, creating a body of work that serves as a legacy for younger writers."
– Eva Stamou, FractalDimitris Nollas
Dimitris A. Nollas was born in 1940 in Adriani, Drama, to parents from Epirus. His family was displaced by the Bulgarian occupation forces and settled in Athens in 1943.
He studied law and sociology in Athens and Frankfurt, but did not complete his studies as the bankruptcy of the family business, from which he derived his income, forced him to enter the workforce at a relatively early age. Since then, he has lived and worked for long periods in what was once Eastern Europe (1962–1975).
He wrote and directed children’s programmes for radio and directed current affairs programmes for state television (1975–97). He taught screenwriting at the Department of Communication at Panteion University (1993–95). In the 1980s, he collaborated on screenplays for film and television productions with the directors Hatzis, Panagiotopoulos, Angelopoulos, Smaragdis, Lambrinos and Voulgaris. Between 2004 and 2007, he served as chairman of the board of the National Book Centre.
Awards:
- Ford Foundation grant (1975–76)
- Fulbright Grant for the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa (1978)
- State Short Story Award (1983)
- State Prize for Fiction (1993)
- Short Story Prize from Diavazo magazine (1996)
- Ourani Prize (2004)
- State Prize for Fiction (2014)
