{"id":12234,"date":"2019-04-28T20:38:05","date_gmt":"2019-04-29T00:38:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=12234"},"modified":"2019-04-28T20:38:05","modified_gmt":"2019-04-29T00:38:05","slug":"episode-318-ersi-sotiropoulos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-318-ersi-sotiropoulos","title":{"rendered":"Episode 318 – Ersi Sotiropoulos"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virtual Memories Show 318:
\nErsi Sotiropoulos<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/virtualmemories\/Episode_318_-_Ersi_Sotiropoulos.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe: Spotify<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>\n

“It’s very important how you say things, because the stories themselves are the same: love, death, sex, betrayal. Since Homer, we repeat the same stories.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>How does an artist make The Leap into greatness? In Ersi Sotiropoulos<\/a>‘ wondrous new novel, What’s Left of the Night<\/a>\"\" (New Vessel Press, tr. Karen Emmerich), we explore three days in the mid-life of the poet CP Cavafy<\/a> and how they may have helped him become the most distinguished Greek poet of the 20th century. Ersi & I talk about how an off-the-cuff discovery of Cavafy’s 1897 trip to Paris led her to this novel over three decades, how she almost drowned in research before a poet browbeat her into writing the proemium of her novel, and how the book rebelled against itself until she had a dream of Cavafy that quelled the unrest. We also get into the universality of desire, her non-challenge of writing from the perspective of a gay man, the process of translation and Ersi’s tendency to over-edit translators when it’s a language she knows. Plus, she tells us why she considers me a pantophile (one who likes everything), and why she prefers hotels over being home in Greece, the Iliad<\/em> over the Odyssey<\/em>, and the daemon over the muses when it comes to the font of creativity. BONUS: You get to hear about the novel I never got around to writing, featuring Henry Miller and George Orwell!<\/em> Give it a listen!<\/a> And go buy What’s Left of the Night<\/a>\"\"!<\/p>\n

“Writing the book, with all the research that I went through, Cavafy became very close as a person. I enjoyed him and I enjoyed his flaws. He amuses me very much.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n