The Rower

I have to pee. but I can’t be bothered to get up at the moment—besides it’s not like I can’t hold it in for a few minutes more—the sensation is still at that phase where it is not sure of itself and can be easily ignored. . .

Tracing the Greek Cypriot Dialect: From Marginality to Elevated Visibility

“A language is a dialect with an army and a navy”. This anonymous, yet famous statement, popularized by linguist Max Weinreich, emphasizes the arbitrariness of the distinction between languages and dialects, drawing our attention towards the political processes behind the decision to codify a particular vernacular into formal language, while condemning other linguistic variants into the subcategory of either the dialect, or the idiom.

Bunker 241

Anna’s toes dug into the earth of the dead zone, her ankles trespassing into the no man’s land snaking across the island from east to west. Her breasts, that lay safely within government-controlled territory, were cushioned by the gentle slopes of dry weeds collapsing onto the torrid landscape.

Στο χωριό των Μαρωνιτών

Απέναντι από την κεντρική εκκλησία (το χωριό είχε άλλες δύο), του Μαρ Γεωργίου, είναι η ταβέρνα Γιάννης. Είχε 34 βαθμούς Κελσίου και στις δύο μεριές της χώρας. Αυτή, βέβαια, είναι η τρίτη. Υπάρχουν στο νησί δύο τουλάχιστον πατρίδες, κι ανάμεσά τους, αναποφάσιστος, ο Λίβανος. Βάλε και το ίδιο το νησί μέσα, την πραγματική πατρίδα, λέω στον Γιάννη (όχι τον ταβερνιάρη, τον φίλο που μαζί ταξιδεύαμε), γίνονται τέσσερις.

Για τις μάνες που φεύγουν

Της άρεσε εκείνη η ψύχρα του πρωινού που έκανε τα καλοκαίρια στο χωριό. Είχε χίλιους λόγους να μην το επισκέπτεται, αλλά η ψύχρα εκείνη, ειδικά όταν ξυπνούσε πριν απ’ όλους, ήταν σαν να έφερνε το χωριό στα μέτρα της.

‘Ανδρος

Αλλά το τηλέφωνο μας εννά σταματήσει να χτυπά; Εγώ νομίζω οτι κάποιος εννά μας ψάχνει τζι’εμάς. Για να μοιραστεί τζιαι τζείνος την απελπισία τζιαι την απόλυτη πλήξη του να ζεις ακόμα,
πολλά μετά την τελευταία μέρα της ζωής σου.

Ruins

Time flows, wild and untamed like a river. It sweeps people off their feet, dragging them along its path, merciless and free, spreading them apart through cliffs and streams. Those who survive, stand the test of time. Those who survive, live to call the rest history.

Simple Twist of Fate

Norwegian Wood is about travelling. It is about first love and unrequited love. It is about loving one’s self, and especially about loving life. It is about redemption, never giving up, and about being able to let go. It is one of those stories that echo through infinity and remind us that the power of written word can lift us up even when we are feeling sad or depressed. 

What we talk about when we talk about gender: An interview with ‘Thkio Logia/Θκυό Λόγια’

We are here to change gender normative narratives and challenge them. As a team, we want to tackle this issue starting with the core mechanisms of education and awareness. As a group of young people sensitized on the issue who have a great understanding of this situation and passion for a change, we decided to act.

Roses Blooming Upstream

Now guess I’m a country hating man, for hate is the last Christian supper I’ll ever understand, and how my people can spell kindness with their red right gun arm, oh there’s a bullet coming for the sun, watching my man bleed unarmed, watch my gay siblings sing ‘till dawn

On Gentrification

“Put down the map, white man;
let me show you what you’ve done.
Take out your camera,
but first let me ask,
what have you enjoyed the most? The defensive walls? They look harmonic on the map. Ignore the middle, that’s a scar, the last divided capital, just look at the Venetian shards.

Louise

‘The day had arrived. Once again, a day like all the others. History was having coffee as it prepared to repeat itself. This time I was to be patient.”

DWELLING, FINAL PART

we cannot understand ourselves as real
confused if we should come out, confused if we are the outcome, come out of what, the outcome of what, the outcome of coming out or coming out of the outcome of coming out

Ο διανοούμενος στο Άουσβιτς: Jean Amery & Primo Levi

Πως αντιδρούσαν οι άνθρωποι του πνεύματος στο καθεστώς του Λάγκερ, σε σχέση με τους υπόλοιπους; Σε ποιο βαθμό η πνευματική καλλιέργειά τους, η μόρφωση και η τέχνη μπορούσαν να αποτελέσουν καταφύγιο; Εν τέλει, ποια ήταν η αντίδραση του διανοούμενου μέσα σε συνθήκες απόλυτης εξαθλίωσης;

Sometimes

words anyway have the tendency of making everything real, they chain a moment by placing it at the mercy of specificity-highlighting all the what-ifs & the surely-is.

Outro

If you want to find the truth
You’ll have to lose some things first

Photography & Literature: A talk with Nicos Philippou

‘Poetry can be a wholly creative process. It has the potential of creating worlds that can be nothing other than the product of the poet’s imagination. Photography, instead, is a transformative process. It can only deal with real things. As such it is often confused with reality itself. But, then, it has an enormous transformative potential. Both, though, are fascinating forms of story-telling which is, after all, the cornerstone of human civilisation.’

DWELLING, PART II

Circling in golden crops on the outskirts like an extraterrestrial trying to compete with the foot long centipede flexing its segmented back through the undergrowth wondering where all its lush humid playground has gone off to

I take my piece of sky

During the quarantine, meeting friends, going to bars, clubs or to the gym, teaching in an actual classroom and all that constituted my past life had vanished. I was left with a virtual classroom, virtual relationships and walking or running in the afternoons. It was then that I started really noticing the strangeness of the sky.

Do not judge a book by its cover

As cliché as the title may sound, I tend to place a lot of emphasis on book covers. A book cover has the power to create a positive or negative presentiment about a book even before I start flipping its pages. Through that first visual encounter, book covers can act as trustworthy predictors of our potential enjoyment or hatred of a book.

The mess of hope

The mother dies. Or maybe she kills herself. Or maybe she is killed. The father locks the two-year-old child in a room. Covers up the windows. The father believes that the child, deprived of language, will begin to speak the language of God.