A novel at once metaphorical and iconoclastic, The Parthenon Bomber exposes the painful and maddening paradox of contemporary Greece.
“Blow up the Acropolis” was the 1944 call to action by the surrealist circle the Harbingers of Chaos. Sixty years later, a young man obliges. The Parthenon has been destroyed, the city orphaned. Is it still Athens?
All eyes are on the empty hill, now smoky and ashen. Cries of distress, indifference, and fanaticism fill the air. What were his reasons? How will he be punished for this unspeakable act of violence? What does it mean for Greece, now deprived of its greatest symbol?
This provocative tale reveals the unique dilemma of a country still searching for an identity beyond its past as the birthplace of Western civilization.
Christos Chrissopoulos (1968) has published 14 books and has engaged with different kinds of literature (fiction, essay, chronicle), with theory and photography. He has been awarded with an Athens Academy Award (2008) and the French awards Prix Laure Bataillon (2014) and Prix Ravachol (2013). He is a member of the European Cultural Parliament (ECP) and the European Society of Authors (SEUA), as well as an Iowa Writer’s Program fellow (IWP). In 2014, the French-German channel ARTE did a featurette on him. He has collaborated with many performers and artists in Greece and especially abroad. He has also given lectures and participated in many of festivals across Europe and the US. His books have been translated into twelve languages.
Chrissopoulos’ recent book “Wanderer Consciousness” (Okto Publications) is a collection of texts and images approaching the questions of how human subjects associate with their deregulated contemporary reality, what kind of consciousness is the city wanderer developing, and how can the artist himself reflect upon his own perception.
