Greek- Australian Cultural League of Melbourne Book Prize 2019 for Stamatia X. SBS Article and Podcast.

The Odyssey of a Young Greek-Australian Migrant: Book Prize to Greek- Australian Author

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The book "Stamatia X" by Greek- Australian author Effie Carr (nee Dimitrakopoulos) recently received a English-language Novel Prize from the Greek-Australian Cultural League of Melbourne and Victoria. The author spoke to SBS Greek.

BY PANOS APOSTOLOU

"The book Stamatia X is a novel that gives a whole new dimension to the writing of these kinds of books, enriched with new semantics.

In addition to telling the story of immigrants, the book explores the issue of human nature and the role of women, the dynamics that develop in family, history and society that, while clearly focused on everything Greek, nevertheless shows a novel universal and human interest. "

This is what the professor of the Department of Modern Greek and Byzantine Studies at the University of Sydney, Professor Vrassidas Karalis said about the book Stamatia X by Carr-Dimitrakopoulos. 

SBS Greek

The book recently received a Prize for Foreign Literature award at the Book Awards organized by the Melbourne-Victoria Cultural Association of Australia and Australia. At the special event that we organized, we met Ms. Carr, who spoke to us at SBS Greek where the idea for this book came from. 

"It was an idea I had in my mind for a while now. I wrote the book because I felt the need to do it. 

"I didn't want to talk about just one specific time in Greece, a historical period of this junta, which many may not be aware of, that from 1967 to 1974 there was a military dictatorship in Greece. 

"I wanted to write a more extensive story, connect different elements of the story and knit them together, as much as I could, to compose the story of a Greek-Australian young girl . "

Ms Carr says this book wants to show how the history and past of this girl, a past that lived in Greece, can affect the first and second generation of Australian Greek immigrants.

The expatriate writer lives and works in Sydney and is currently preparing her next book. She tells our program that her first book is about a difficult political time. Her protagonist Stamatia, is perceived differently by different readers, including as a tragic character. 

She says her book is not political, but philosophical. "It's more of a journey of self-knowledge and exploration of ourselves." 

The first chapter of the book is called "Epistrophe” / Return. It begins with a return and ends with a return. 

"It's like Homer's Odyssey, but a new odyssey. It may look like an odyssey for someone who was not born in Greece, someone born in Australia and whose parents come from Greece. It is a journey that carries the special weight of the Greek cultural heritage on its luggage .  "

https://www.sbs.com.au/language/greek/audio/greek-australian-author-effie-karr-talks-about-her-book-stamatia-x-on-sbs-greek

Extract of Professor Vrasidas Karalis's speech at launch of 'Stamatia X' at Gleebooks 13 April 2018

Effie Carr’s Stamatia X: Re-defining the Greek-Australian narrative self

“I started reading the novel with curiosity and in bewilderment. What might be the new dimension in the decades long genre of the migrant novel that could make a difference to the existing ones or in what ways it could renew the venerable series of such novels starting in Australia already since the fifties?

I must admit that the novel was a revelation to me because it added a completely new dimension in the writing of the genre and enriched with new semantics.

But together with the migrant narrative, questions of gender and feminine presence, the dynamics within a family, history and society which, although distinctly Greek, are explored giving to the novel a universal and human interest…

What distinguishes the novel is its striking narrative fluidity and flexibility: The narrator moves backwards and forwards in time using both dimensions to elucidate the present and the way we are now.

Carr re-imagines a past which is actual and factual but her imagination enriches it with sensibility of contemporary perceptions and the emotional content of current questions about identity.

But the novel is not only about identity: it is also about memory and the past, and how they determine the mind today.

The book explores the dimension of being always aware of the three dimensions of time: past, future and present, all converging into a powerful recreation of the forces that made Stamatia confront the history of the country of origin, confront prejudices and ultimately her own self. The narrative is fascinating and engaging. The characters are complex and tangible within their own contradictions and dilemmas. The act of reconstructing the past highly sophisticated and very effectively crafted. Carr used active imagination to connect some of the most turbulent events in Greek history in an an attempt to foreground the inner strange of her characters and present their existential testimony.

I read this book with the extreme interest and curiosity: it kept my interest from the beginning to the end. Throughout the reading I was trying to keep pace with the profound transformation taking place in the psyche of the central character. Gradually, Australia becomes home as the book becomes a “final love letter” to a beloved past while the final pages reward like a hallucination both verbal and imaginative. Indeed, the final paragraphs of the book are something of an amazing explosion of emotions, ideas and images as the narrative turns into the first person: (p.245) representing the unborn new life still within Stamatia’s body.

I invite all of you to immerse yourselves into this linguistic odyssey as a deeply transformative experience: you will learn, be moved and entertained all at the same time: the depth of the story and the narrative euphoria of the book enrich Australian literature with a fascinating new novel indicating where Australia can travel if it rediscovers or re-imagines its roots and origins.

Congratulations to the publisher who undertook the risk and of course to Effie who wrote such a majestic first novel.”

-Professor Vrasidas Karalis, Sir Nicholas Laurantus Professor of Modern Greek , Chair of Modern Greek Department, The University of Sydney.

Review of 'Stamatia X'

"How heavily does the past weigh on the present? To what degree is a child’s future defined by her parents’ memories and yearnings? By her teacher’s experiences? Or by the fact that she is female raised in a family environment which palpably places primacy on the male? These are the issues which young Stamatia must resolve – a resolution that involves a probing process which begins in Sydney and continues in rural Greece, once her family returns to her parents’ country of birth, and climaxes in fiery Athens. The past is a tangible, if mutable, presence forever accompanying Effie Carr’s heroine: Stamatia studies it, memorises it, dissects it, reassembles it, lives it, and on occasion rejects it. This is the past of her immediate circle as well as that of Greece both as imagined by immigrant Greeks and as officially promulgated by the guardians of all things Hellenic. And, indeed, the past of her own childhood in Australia. It is in her personal vitalisation of all these pasts, and particularly within their interstices, that Stamatia can cleave her own world in the uncertain context of Greece’s inflammable capital. She attains her personal freedom where the burden of memory and the realities of the present collide, and so adds her chapter to the continuous past and present which we all live."

- Dr Stavros Paspalas, Acting Director of The Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens, The University of Sydney

Stamatia X - 2018 Release

'Stamatia X' is planned for an November release with the launch taking place in Sydney, Australia.  Please watch this space along with other social media platforms for more updates.

Weaving Greek mythology, religion and the study of grammar, 'Stamatia X' is the story of a Greek-Australian girl whose parents make the monumental decision to re-migrate "like birds flying backwards" to Greece. The year is 1973 and a military junta is in power. This modern Greek tragedy subverts notions of family, culture and gender. A yiayia in a swimsuit, a blasphemous Greek Orthodox priest, a corrupt regime. An explosive epic.