Baroque

Original title: Μπαρόκ

Publication Date:

2018

Pages:

352

Original language and publisher

Greek | Kastaniotis

Baroque

Original title: Μπαρόκ

  • 2 Seas Represents: Dutch rights.
  • Sample translations in French, Spanish and German available

FICTION

One of Michalopoulou’s best books but also one of the best books of the last few years. — To Vima, 2018

A moving life-affirming book. — I Kathimerini, 2018

Loosely reminiscent of F. Scott Fitzerald’s, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, in its unorthodox handling of time, Amanda Michalopoulou’s eighth novel charts the life trajectory of a 50-year old woman as she moves back in time from the present to the day of her birth.

Comprised of fifty chapters, each one corresponding to a memorable event in the heroine’s life, Baroque is not only a brilliant study on truth and invention but also the author’s own “literary” autobiography.

A wise and life-affirming glimpse into a woman’s coming into her own, Baroque, is about truth, memory, identity, the pleasure of invention, and those memories, real and imagined that we can’t escape.

Amanda Michalopoulou (born 1966, Athens) is one of Greece’s most highly acclaimed writers. She has published seven novels, three short story collections and a successful series of children’s books, all to great critical acclaim. She is the recipient of the country’s most prestigious literary awards, including the Revmata Prize, the Diavazo Award, and the Athens Academy Prize. Her work has been translated into many languages, including German and French. In the U.S., Michalopoulou’s I’d Like (Dalkey Archive, 2008; translated by Karen Emmerich) was awarded the NEA’s International Literature Prize and was on the 2009 Best Translated Books longlist. Her novel, Why I killed My Best Friend (Open Letter Books, 2014; translated by Karen Emmerich) was also longlisted for the 2014 Best Translated Books. Her short-story “Mesopotamia” was chosen for Best European Fiction 2018 (Dalkey Archive).