Our next guest is the author and journalist Anastasios Vistonitis, presenting his book "The Backstage of Memory – On Literature, Ideas, and History", published by Kastaniotis Editions.
A Few Words About the Author
Anastasios Vistonitis was born in Komotini in 1952. Since 1970, he has published twelve poetry books, seven prose works, five volumes of essays, and four translation books, including works by Chinese poets Li Ho and Bei Dao, Israeli poet Amir Or, and Slovenian poet Aleš Šteger. He has published numerous articles, essays, travelogues, and critical notes. Since 1991, he has been an editor for the newspaper To Vima. He was a member of the executive team that prepared Athens' bid for the 2004 Olympic Games. From 1996 to 2001, he served on the Board of the Federation of European Writers, and from 2003 to 2008, he was its Vice President. His poems, essays, and prose have been translated into twenty languages. Six of his poetry books have been published in English, German, Slavic Macedonian, Slovenian, Chinese, and Hebrew, while one of his prose works has been published in Serbian. In December 2018, Kastaniotis Editions published "Poems 1971-2008", a collection of his poetic works to date. In June 2021, they released his prose collection "The Bed of Time".
A Few Words About the Book
"At a time when some are quick to predict that the rise of the digital society and the internet will lead to the end of books and print, I still believe—and I am certainly not alone—that the essence remains in ‘paper’, meaning the printed book, magazine, or newspaper", writes Anastasios Vistonitis in the prologue of "The Backstage of Memory".
In this work, the author brings literature, ideas, movements, works, and the places where the great writers and intellectuals of the 20th century lived into the spotlight, while simultaneously composing his intellectual autobiography.
Through the pages of the book, we encounter the great dystopian writers: Huxley, Orwell, Koestler, Zamyatin, and Bradbury. The journey continues with visits to the places where Tolstoy, Edgar Allan Poe, Franz Kafka, and Victor Serge lived and wrote. It then portrays major intellectuals such as George Steiner, Michel Foucault, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, and others. Finally, it highlights prominent authors who were considered the "black sheep" of literature: Ezra Pound, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Ba Jin, and Alexander Fadeyev. An adventure of the influential figures who shaped schools of thought and left a lasting impact on future generations of great artists.
