Journal of a Return

Telemahos Hytiris

Hytiris T., Journal of a Return, Melani, Athens, 2017.
Language | Greek.

T. Hytiris is a poet, politician, and husband of M. Farantouri.

His book features three narratives showcasing unforeseen personal events during his repatriation to Greece from Italy, where he had resided for eight years, initially for his studies and subsequently due to the dictatorship in Greece. It offers a unique gaze into microhistory with immediacy, vivid description, and humour. Naturally, it also includes references to Maria Farantouri, with whom his acquaintance dates back to those difficult years.

At times, he would close the book and think about life and the people he was leaving behind.

First and foremost Her, alone, striving to pass the flame of her deepest existence onto indifferent strangers and —little by little, with persistence, insecurities, a thousand obstacles, pain, and toil, yet also with faith— forcing them to listen to her, to notice her; and then, the few becoming many, and more and more, having nothing else on her mind but the very reason she was born, guarding the gift as a gift and never debasing it through transactions of any kind. A girl wounded, sensitive yet strong, from a poor, working-class family, from a refugee suburb of Athens. Another Greece.