Book starts off the Karagatsis Year events
The presentation on Tuesday of a book dedicated to writer M. Karagatsis was the occasion for Culture Minister Michalis Liapis to officially proclaim 2008 Karagatsis Year. The book is the first in a series of events commemorating the centenary of the author’s birth. M. Karagatsis, 1908-1960, was a prolific author who wrote novels, novellas, short stories, essays, criticism and plays. His daughter, Marina Karagatsi, gave a brief but moving account of her father’s personality, sketching the portrait of a lovable, generous but irascible man. The purpose of such annual tributes, organized by the Culture Ministry (YPPO) and the National Book Center of Greece (EKEBI), Liapis explained, is to prompt the reading public to discover writers, and to focus on hitherto neglected aspects of their work. The book is an appealing compendium of photographs, paintings, a chronology of the author’s life and brief articles examining diverse aspects of the man and his work. It will accompany a movable exhibition that is to tour schools throughout Greece, public libraries and other cultural venues. Conference The Benaki Musem is marking Karagatsis Year with a conference, «M. Karagatsis: Ideology and Poetics,» which starts tomorrow and ends Saturday. The first day of the conference will focus on the writer’s relation to the historic past and the ideology of his times, while the second will focus on his own writing in an attempt to reveal his poetics. The conference will conclude with a discussion in which contemporary writers will present their own image of Karagatis, comment on the relevance of his work today and analyze their connection with it. A small exhibition of first editions and manuscripts from the archive of Marina Karagatsi will be on display during the conference. And Tassos Psaras’s film on the author will be screened in the Benaki Museum amphitheater tomorrow at 8 p.m. Proceedings start at 9.45 a.m. Friday and 10 a.m. on Saturday. Benaki Museum, 138 Pireos Ave, tel 210.345.3111.
