BOOKS

Συναντήσεις με αξιοσημείωτα ζωα (2025)

Meetings with remarkable animals / Kristi Stassinopoulou

Συναντήσεις με αξιοσημείωτα ζώα / Κρίστη Στασινοπούλου

OPPORtUNA Publications

Cover design-creative-editing: Kostantinos Katagas

General editor: Nikos Papachristopoulos

OPPORtUNA Publications,

Remarkable are those animals that, each time you  meet them, you want to open your notebook and note the experience. This book consists of such notes: Small texts and sketches, each one of them concerning one meeting with a remarkable creature of nature:

Lizards of the Cycladic islands, dragonflies, gold-flies, cicadas of the summer. Jackals that sing polyphonically, foxes that descended to the center of Athens, whales that travel secretly under the surface of the Saronic Gulf and that little octopus that was dancing the zeibekiko dance. Seagulls, hawks, eagles, partridges, wise owls, the terrifying howling nightbird and that robin visiting Kristi every winter. And from distant places: The sacred cows that went wild, the elephant of the Indian temple, the rats of Bombay, the monkeys on the Hanuman hill, the packs of lean dogs on the beaches of Goa.

All of them whispering truths about the Nature of Things, giving birth to philosophical questions but also inspiration for all kinds of funny jokes.

 
Μικρά κείμενα και σκίτσα, κάθε ένα και μια συνάντηση: Σαύρες των Κυκλάδων, λιβελούλες, χρυσόμυγες, τζιτζίκια. Τσακάλια που τραγουδούν πολυφωνικά, αλεπούδες που κατέβηκαν μέχρι την Ακρόπολη. Θαλάσσια κήτη στον Σαρωνικό, κοπάδια ψαριών που προπονούνται στις ποδοσφαιρικές κεφαλιές κι εκείνο το χταποδάκι που μας χόρευε ζεϊμπέκικο. Γλάροι, γεράκια, αητοί, σοφές κουκουβάγιες, ο τρομακτικός χουχουριστής, ο κοκκινολαίμης που με γυροφέρνει κάθε χειμώνα.

Και από πιο μακρινά μέρη… Οι ιερές αγελάδες που αφήνιασαν, η ελεφαντίνα του ινδικού ναού, οι αρουραίοι της Βομβάης, τα πιθήκια του Χάνουμαν, οι αγέλες των λιπόσαρκων σκυλιών στις αμμουδιές της Γκόα…

 

 

 

 

ΗΜΕΡΟΛΟΓΙΑ ΟΝ ΤΗΕ ROAD (2023)

Diaries On the Road / Kristi Stasinopoulou

Ημερολόγια On the Road / Κρίστη Στασινοπούλου

OPPORtUNA Publications

Cover design-creative-editing: Kostantinos Katagas

on a photo by Reiner Witzel

General editor: Nikos Papachristopoulos

In my new book, titled Diaries On The Road, I narrate my experiences and impressions from the twenty-five years that, together with Stathis Kalyviotis and our band, we have been touring the world playing our music.

From the various international music festivals, the famous concert halls or the legendary, underground clubs of the big cities of Europe and America, to the cultural concerts in remote villages of exotic countries, difficulties on the road, funny road-stories, acquaintances with interesting musicians of all nationalities, cultural similarities and differences… I couldn’t help but note them almost daily in my notebooks while travelling in vans, planes and trains, in hotel rooms, waiting rooms, dressing rooms.

At the time of the pandemic I found the opportunity to clear up these texts, type and edit them and to scan my pencil sketches, forgotten between the pages. Written from my own point of view, having already traveled a long path in the music scene of my country, I found it interesting, pleasant, perhaps even useful, to share them.

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THE FIERY SWORD (1995)

A novel of magic, set in Athens in the early 90s.

Livanis editions

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SEVEN TIMES IN AMORGOS (1993)

A book with seven mystery short stories set on the faraway Greek, Cycladic island

Kastaniotis editions

Read an English or a German translation of one of the book’s short stories.

Until the early 1990s, before the onset of global tourism, travellers arriving on the Cycladic island of Amorgos were either looking for a holiday away from the tourist trail or seeking a simpler, alternative way of life.

Some foreigners, like little Hans’ mother, had married a Greek and decided to follow him to his homeland. Others, such as the glamorous Greek-American singer Cassandra, were simply passing by the island, just another stop on a luxury cruise.

A police inspector from the mainland looking for terrorists, a British aristocrat on a sleek yacht, a young local woman who died of a broken heart and whose memory islanders ridiculed at their peril, a distraught Frenchman looking desperately for his missing wife.

All the characters in these seven short mystery stories by Kristi Stassinopoulou, set on Amorgos and inspired by her own sojourns on this island in the heart of the Aegean Sea, are touched in some way by the forces of nature emanating from its rocks and ravines, the winds that buffet its precipitous cliffs, and legends of sprites, mermaids and pirate galleons.

Above all, they tell of a time just before quad bikes, jet skis, cable TV, wifi and high-speed ferries brought the wider world into the Cyclades, almost, but not quite, changing them forever.