Author Dimosthenis Papamarkos, in conversation with hia translator Siân Valvis on Gjack, his haunting portrait of postwar Greece.

‘Blood inherited, blood endowed, blood spilled into the earth. The protagonists of these riveting stories struggle with their morality, their conscience, and with one another — in a language initially foreign, yet ultimately familiar, because it unapologetically belongs to them.’
– Yorgos Lanthimos

Greece, a hundred years ago: in the aftermath of the Greco-Turkish War, young men return from the battlefield, forever changed by what they have seen and done. They come home seeking revenge or forgiveness; all of them grieving. They might have survived the war, but peace does not come easily. The men are marked. These are their stories.

Hailed as the most important Greek work of fiction of the 21st century, Gjak unfolds in an unnamed Arvanite village – a closed rural community governed by its own codes of honour. Binding each soldier’s story is the red thread of gjak itself: an Arvanitic word meaning blood, bloodline, blood feud, and nation. With this thread, these interconnected tales are woven into a haunting portrait of a world in violent transition.

This event is supported by the Onassis Foundation and Arts Council England