Alexis Stamatis - Chameleons

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Category: Literature

Published on Thursday, 09 July 2015 13:33

One Modern Greek writer is Alexis Stamatis, a well-known novelist, playwright and poet born in Athens, Greece. He graduated in Architecture from the National Technical University of Athens and made his postgraduate degrees in London in the subjects Architecture and Cinematography.

 He wrote 22 books, including novels, short stories, children books and poetry. His second novel, Βar Flaubert, a critically acclaimed work, became bestseller in Greece and has been published in UK, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Serbia and Bulgaria. The book has also been adapted as a screenplay by the author and the director Vassilis Douvlis. Stamatis wrote the libretti for two musical pieces performed in Megaron Mousikis and the Chora theatre.

In 2009 he was writer in residence in Shanghai, invited by the Shanghai Writers Association. Alexis Stamatis has represented Greece in various Book Festivals and seminars all over the world! He has been working for many major Greek newspapers and magazines and he currently teaches creative writing at the Hellenic American Academic Foundation (Athens College - Psychico College) and the Herakleidon Art Museum.

Let’s have a look at one of his novels – Chameleons:

A family throughout time… A young couple, married despite their contradictive origin. A stigmatized woman, an immigrant father, a mysterious friend from the past… A weird letter. An almost silent film. A teenager who grows up in the years of fake prosperity. A girl singing for a changing world. A child watching the course to collapse. A society leaving the dark and finally getting dazzled by the light. People creating, loving and hoping, people who adjust and change “color” in order to meander. All around them a country experiencing intense conflicts and compromises. A country fighting fears, constantly changing ideologies, trends and desires, but remains profoundly the same, unprepared for a long time now.

The novel was published in 2013, the 2nd edition in 2014.

It is a book for the human nature and its weakness, for the land we are born in and stigmatized by forever.