INTERVIEW

Soti Triantafillou:
If we have a Native Country, it's our Language

hat is remarkable about Soti Triantafillou is not only her narrative skill but also the background against which her stories take place, as well as the nationalities of her characters: she must be one of the first Greek women writers whose books

figure foreign characters (even Americans), who has set the action of some of her novels outside Greece (specifically, in the American hinterland), and, more generally, who seems to inhabit an atmosphere with not one nationality but many. She is, moreover, a multi-faceted writer who moves with ease from collective historical events to the personal microcosm of the individual, from the city where she was born to metropolitan cities throughout the world, from rock and roll to the "heavy artillery" of world literature. In short, an authentic voice in modern Greek fiction.

by ELIAS MAGLINIS

26 ITHACA

YOU HAVE SAID THAT THE WHOLE WORLD IS A VILLAGE AND THAT TRUE NOVELS HAVE NO NATIONALITY. YOU YOURSELF SYSTEMATICALLY SET THE ACTION OF YOUR OWN NOVELS ABROAD, PARTICULARLY IN THE U.S.A., AND YOUR MAIN CHARACTERS ARE FREQUENTLY NOT GREEKS. DOES THIS CHOICE REPRESENT A POINT OF VIEW THAT STEMS FROM THE FACT THAT YOU LIVED IN AMERICA FOR MANY YEARS?

SIMILAR HAPPENING WITH SOTI TRIANTAFILLOU AND ROCK? DO YOU WRITE "ROCK NOVELS"?

I've also said that I'm not in the least patriotic and that if we have a native country, then it is our language. The better we know our language, the wider the horizons of our life will be. What's more, I believe that when one recognises more than one country as one's own, one has a far greater chance of being happy: a world without borders - either linguistic or "national" - is one of the ideals of the Left, and hence mine too. Besides, far too much has been said about my "American themes": after all, was Joseph Conrad - a Pole who wrote in English - concerned with a "Congolese" theme in Heart of Darkness?
APART FROM LITERATURE, YOU HAVE ALSO BEEN INTERESTED IN HISTORY AND IN THE THEORY OF CINEMA, AND HAVE WORKED AS A JOURNALIST. DO YOU THINK THAT THE LANGUAGE OF THE CINEMA OR OF JOURNALISM HAS INFLUENCED YOUR WRITING, AND IF SO, HOW?

"Rock novels" is an insult. If you don't object - or even if you do - what I write is novels pure and simple. On the other hand, rock and roll is for me the most wonderful thing in the world: the proof of the greatness of Western civilisation. I'm happy that it exists. I might note, by the

way, that the beatniks seem to me to be minor writers, also bon pour l'Orient! (With the exception of Kerouac's On the Road.)
IT IS SAID THAT NATURE INSPIRES POETS AND THE CITY PROSE WRITERS. WHETHER YOUR BOOKS ARE SET IN GREECE OR ABROAD, THEIR INVARIABLE BACKGROUND IS URBAN, THE CONTEMPORARY CITY. BUT IS THIS SIMPLY A SETTING, OR DOES IT PERHAPS IN SOME WAY FORM PART OF THE ACTION AND CONTENT?

The better we know our language, the wider the horizons of our life will be. What's more, I believe that when one recognises more than one country as one's own, one has a far greater chance of being happy: a world without borders - either linguistic or "national"

I grew up in the centre of Athens, which was a village! Subsequently I travelled, I got ill, I went through a lot. In large cities I feel whole, real and absolutely free. Large cities are what I know, h e n c e they're what I

All I did was to study, like countless other people. In Greece any writer who follows formal studies is treated with suspicion. What we like is the self-taught, unpolished artist, the man labouring under a curse, etc. But all that is bon pour l' Orient! I'm a historian specialised in American subjects and my long years of study have taught me how to learn. I'm a fanatic reader, I grew up surrounded by books. As for journalism, I'm still involved in it: I'm an active citizen, I express my opinion, I keep myself informed about (almost) everything. I read, I see, I write. That's what I do.
YOUR BOOKS CONTAIN FREQUENT REFERENCES TO MUSIC, AND THESE ARE IMPORTANT. REFERENCES TO ROCK AND ROLL PARTICULARLY. THE BEAT WRITERS WANTED TO WRITE THE WAY CHARLIE PARKER PLAYED THE SAXOPHONE. IS SOMETHING

D. TSOUMBLEKAS

describe. With the knowledge and experience that I possess today I couldn't very well set my stories in the depths of a valley or on the peaks of the mountains. In spite of this, Underground Heaven takes place in the American hinterland and Tomorrow, Another Country in a Greek seaside village. After all, I didn't drop down from the planet Andromeda: I know how people live both in towns and in the country.

YOUR NEXT NOVEL, TOMORROW, ANOTHER COUNTRY , IS SET IN ATHENS DURING THE 60S. IN SPITE OF THE "TOMORROW" OF THE TITLE, THE NOVEL SPEAKS OF THE PAST, OF A DIFFERENT ATHENS, WHICH WAS THE SCENE OF YOUR CHILDHOOD. NOTWITHSTANDING THE SENSE OF LOSS, THE BOOK IS PERMEATED WITH THAT, NOW FAMILIAR, OPTIMISTIC ATMOSPHERE TO WHICH YOU'VE ACCUSTOMED US, WHICH IS SOMETHING RARE FOR A GREEK WRITER.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Soti Triantafillou was born in Athens in 1957. She studied Pharmacology at the University of Athens, History and Civilisation at the cole des Hautes tudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, the History of the American City in New York, and French Literature at the University of Athens. She has worked as a translator, editor, and teacher of the history of the cinema. She also contributes articles to various newspapers and magazines.

Greeks have a tendency to wail, a collective and individual hysteria. Moaning. Putting the responsibility for things on to AFTER YOUR FIRST THREE COLLECTIONS OF someone else: it's always others who are SHORT STORIES, WHICH AS YOU'VE SAID IN THE PAST HELPED TO IMPROVE YOUR STYLE, to blame for our misfortunes! Our paCAME SATURDAY rents, mothers-inNIGHT AT THE EDGE law, the Americans OF TOWN, WHICH IS SET IN NEW YORK IN murderers of the THE 80S AND WAS people etc. This YOUR FIRST SUCby itself would have CESS. IT IS BASICALarge cities are what I know, been enough to LLY AN OPTIMISTIC hence they're what I describe. BOOK. WOULD YOU make me change CALL IT A COMING my nationality. OF AGE BOOK? When people have two hands, two When I was twenty eyes and all the I believed that I'd other appropriate never reach thirty. bits of their bodies, then they have at their (Keith Moon thought the same, and in his disposal the whole gamut of opportunicase he was right.) Then everything ties. From then on the ball is at their feet changed: the music I listened to, the books I read. I was very happy with tiny and they have to play. In Tomorrow, Anothings: life began to seem beautiful and ther Country there isn't any blatant funny. Saturday Night at the Edge of tragedy: the characters are cool, and when Town is an optimistic book because it they aren't (like Effi), they're under the speaks of destruction and survival. My beneficial influence of coolness which is a collections of stories were rather pessiform of wisdom. mistic: they belong to another epoch, a YOUR THIRD NOVEL, UNDERGROUND HEAtime of roaming when I thought I'd never VEN, REFERS TO THE WAVE OF GREEK IMMIreach thirty. GRANTS IN AMERICA AND COMBINES AME-

28 ITHACA

F. NIKOS

RICAN AND GREEK CULTURES: THE CHILDREN OF GREEK-AMERICAN IMMIGRANTS IN SEARCH OF THE DREAM THROUGH ON-THEROAD WANDERINGS. IT'S ONE OF THE FEW OCCASIONS WHERE WE DON'T SEE THE GREEK IMMIGRANT CHARACTERISED BY THAT GLOOMY LONGING FOR HIS HOMELAND BUT RATHER INCORPORATED INTO A FOREIGN ENVIRONMENT. FOR YOUR CHARACTERS, IS THE SEARCH FOR THE DREAM EQUIVALENT TO A CARPE DIEM?

Undergound Heaven describes the parallel course of two generations. Since I don't belong to any generation I look at them all with the relative coolness I mentioned above. The young Doods wanders across the country but never manages to reach the Pacific; his father's wanderings are internal: he becomes an American because he wants to, because he chooses South Bend, Indiana and puts the mountains of Arcadia and his headscarf-wearing sisters behind him once and for all. It's a book about nostalgia: about the hypocrisy of nostalgia and the liberation from worship of all things Greek. It's also a book about contemporary America: about how you can realise your dreams, and about how you can become trapped in the sour political system and the vast geography.
YOUR NOVEL THE PENCIL FACTORY MADE A BREAK WITH YOUR WRITING UNTIL THEN: NOT ONLY BECAUSE OF THE HUGE RESPONSE IT MET WITH FROM THE PUBLIC BUT BECAUSE OF ITS SUBJECT: A STRONGLY HISTORICAL SETTING WITH REFERENCES TO THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION, TROTSKY, ROSA LUXEMBOURG, MAYAKOVSKY AND OTHERS. HOW DID THE IDEA OF WRITING A NOVEL LIKE THIS BEGIN? TO WHAT DO YOU THINK ITS GREAT SUCCESS IS DUE?

Hardly a break! I'm a historian, I know a little about history, I'm politically on the Left, I've been so for thirty years now, I've read the accounts of the workers' movements right down to the notes on the footnotes. I'm always talking about it, I'm a total bore! I've got about ten historical novels in mind which, if I live long enough, I'll write and maybe you'll have to endure them. As for "success", I'm not qualified to analyse it: these things are

There are some things that I think about in English. Other things I think about in other languages. Many writers move from one language to another.

affects me and I have a terrific curiosity. It would take all day to recount everything that has influenced me and made me what I am today instead of something else. My favourite writer is Heinrich Boll, but I also very much like other German writers (Max Frisch, Klaus Mann, Hermann Broch). I read the novels and short stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald and go through a great many handkerchiefs as I do so. I weep copious tears: he speaks of life as we live it (as I live it), as also sometimes does Raymond Carver. I really love them. I also love Iris Murdoch (in the past I wanted to write her a letter, I've got a mania for writing to authors that I love), Jim Harrison and Vasco Pratolini. I consider Philip Roth a very great writer, very great indeed. I'll never ever be able to write as well as him. Martin Amis is so gifted that when I read his work I want to change my profession. The Italian neorealists seem to me to be extraordinarily humane and moving. Robert Desnos is my favourite poet. That's it!
PUBLISHED WORKS FICTION 1 DAYS LIKE MANDARINES, ATHENS, AIGOKEROS, 1990 2 THE STILLWELL ELEVATED TRAIN, ATHENS, DELFINI, 1992 3 ALPHABET CITY, ATHENS, DELFINI, 1994 4 SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE EDGE OF TOWN, ATHENS, POLIS, 1996. 272 PP. ISBN 960-7478-21-5 5 TOMORROW, ANOTHER COUNTRY, ATHENS, POLIS, 1997. 320 PP., ISBN 960-7478-40-1 6 UNDERGROUND HEAVEN, ATHENS, POLIS, 1998. 214 PP., ISBN 960-7478-52-1 7 THE PENCIL FACTORY, ATHENS, PATAKIS, 2000. 416 PP., ISBN 960-378-389-7 8 POOR MARGO, ATHENS, PATAKIS, 2001. 392 PP., ISBN 960-160-205-4 CHILDREN'S BOOKS: MARION IN THE SILVER ISLANDS AND THE RED FORESTS, ATHENS, PATAKIS, 1999, ISBN 960-378-104-5 ESSAYS-STUDIES: 1 HISTORY OF WORLD CINEMA, 1976-1992, ATHENS, AIGOKEROS, 1993. 304 PP., ISBN 960-322-000-0 2 FILMED CITIES, ATHENS, SYNCHRONI EPOCHI, 1989. 208 PP., ISBN 960-224-211-6 3 JOHN CASSAVETES, ATHENS, AIGOKEROS, 1985 4 FRANCOIS TRUFFAUT, ATHENS, AIGOKEROS, 1986 5 FRENCH CINEMA, ATHENS, AIGOKEROS, 1987 6 NEW ENGLISH CINEMA, ATHENS, AIGOKEROS, 1988 TRANSLATIONS IN GERMAN: 1 DER UNTERIRDISCHE HIMMEL [TR.BY]: BIRGIT HILDEBRAND, WIEN, ZSOLNAY, 2001 304 PP., ISBN: 3-552-05175-9 2 DIE BLEISTIFTFABRIK [TR.BY]: BIRGIT HILDEBRAND, WIEN, ZSOLNAY, 2001

mostly the province of the publishers. I just sit here and write.
POOR MARGO, YOUR NEXT NOVEL, WAS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN IN ENGLISH AND THEN TRANSLATED INTO GREEK. IT IS A PURELY AMERICAN NOVEL. WHAT'S IT LIKE WRITING IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE, AND WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE BOOK IN ITS GREEK TRANSLATION?

English isn't a foreign language. The book was "conceived" in English and directly "executed" in it. There are some things that I think about in English. Other things I think about in other languages. This is something that often happens in literature, much more frequently than people believe. Many writers move from one language to another.
I IMAGINE THAT YOUR READING OF FOREIGN WORKS OF LITERATURE HAS HAD A DEFINITIVE INFLUENCE ON YOU AS A WRITER, MUCH MORE SO THAN GREEK LITERATURE. WOULD YOU LIKE TO TELL US ABOUT SOME OF THE BOOKS THAT HAVE INFLUENCED YOU OR HAD AN EFFECT ON YOU?

Every single day there is something that

ITHACA 29