Panos Karnezis

An Onassis-like tycoon is nearing the end of his life. When he finds out that his daughter is pregnant by a man he does not approve of, he has a birthday party for her on his private island, secretly intending to persuade her to end the pregnancy: a doctor is standing by to perform the procedure on the spot.

From the heart-in-mouth opening scene to its melancholy ending, We are Made of Earth is a skilled blend of seductive linguistic simplicity and luminous moral depth. In Karnezis confident hands, a timely story of refugee arrival on a foreign shorea prismatic exploration of the moral and emotional price those leaving their homeland must pay for peace and securityis transformed into a timeless narrative of connection and disorientation, longing and self-doubt. With Karnezis trademark details catching like splinters in that part of the imagination that responds to pure storytelling (TLS), We are Made of Earth opens when an overcrowded dinghy capsizes at sea. A doctor is among the refugees thrown overboard. In the panic, he saves one life and condemns another. The doctor and the boy he savesthe only witness to the crimewash up on a tiny Greek island where they are offered shelter by the owner of a small travelling circus. Debt-ridden, the circus owner has just one asset: an Asian elephant, far from her natural habitat but lovingly tended by the owners wife even as she mourns their young daughter. As the two refugees await an endlessly deferred ferry to continue their journey, the displaced elephant becomes both symbolic and substantial, and the unfortunate catalyst for precisely the kinds of misunderstandings and misinterpretations that regularly drown lives. At once timely and timeless, this powerful and absorbing novel by Panos Karnezis explores the price of peace and security through the intimate motivations and moral dilemmas of people bound together by fate and circumstance.

Ambientada en Anatolia en 1992, El laberinto es la historia de un destacamente del ejército griego que se extravía en el corazón de Turquía cuando se bate en retirada mientras el ejército turco acecha, ávido de venganza por los tres años de ocupación. El único refugio de los griegos será una pequeña comunidad que ha permanecido al margen de la guerra gobernada por un alcalde simplón y poblada por una galería de personajes en extremo singulares; una ciudad en la que nada volverá a ser igual cuando los soldados se marchen.