Arkadia VII:
O Epizon - The Survivor

by Mikis Theodorakis


Zatouna, June 1969 - We felled two rotten nut-trees and brought the wood to Lambis. Myrto has ordered donkey saddles to use them as seats. We make the frame of wood and then Lambis chooses the leather and hands it over to Choulias "the boss of the factory" who deals with the covering. Long ago Zatouna was a flourishing place, with large shops, tanneries, weaving workshops and was made up of two parishes. Today only memories survive from that past and also the grocer Sotiropoulos. He goes out of his shop only at noon for his lunch. He eats standing as if he does not wish to waste his time, accustomed to the rate of work of another era. Then he comes back to his workshop quickly to have his siesta behind the almost empty exhibition stalls "riding" on a chair and always expecting customers that have long disappeared.

I go through my anthology from page to page.

I keep the book open at Takis Sinopoulos. His poem "The Survivor" has something that attracts me, something that concerns me!
* * *
Just like 'The March of the Spirit", "The Survivor" is typically metasymphonic. In addition to contemporary poetry and popular singers and instruments that they incorporate, what is new in these metasymphonic works is the more complex style and development.

© Mikis Theodorakis: Journals of Resistance


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