Η πόλη με τους εργένηδεςThe City with the Bachelors

ReviewsAggeliki Birbili, ATHENS VOICE, FREE PRESS,

ISSUE 91-210, Sept 2005

Lonely protagonists of a contemporary metropolis, the solitude lurking around the corner, without any chance of escape. Self-destructive, elusive, alienated, the heroes carry their demons, meet each other and disappear again in the dark streets. Broken dreams, empty landscape, nightmarish nights.

Young women bearing their overweight like a burden in the soul, immigrants crossing roads with women who have failure painted around their eyes, women trapped in meaningless marriages, bachelors, strangers. Strangers in the same city, in their own lives. These are finely written, interesting short stories and novellas, the debut of the translator and editor Lisa Samloglou.

ReviewsAris Maragopoulos, chief editor for the Publisher ELLINIKA GRAMMATA

Aris Maragopoulos has been a member of the Administration at The Association of Greek Writers.After more than two years and dozens of books published from his editions ELLINIKA GRAMMATA, he is interviewed at the major Sunday Journal, KYRIAKATIKI ELEFTHEROTYPIA, No 273, Dec. 11, 2007

Q: To your opinion which titles stand out from the books you have published?

Aris Maragopoulos: 'The Bella Ciao' by Thanasis Skroumbelos and The City with the Bachelors by Lisa Samloglou.

I would not have published a book, though, if I did not believe in it.

ReviewEditor Efi Falida, BIBLIODROMIO, TA NEA, October 8-9th, 2005

There are some lonely protagonists in this book, which is screening the modern city with accuracy and narrative vigor.

Protagonists who can choose two directions, the one leading to destruction, or their exit to the ‘twilight zone’.

Among them, stands out the married woman at her forties with the kind of thoughts her husband fortunately does not guess.

‘So, he gives me a dollar for my thought, and few years later, if we are still sound and healthy, I will give him two dollars to tell me what to think’.

Reviews Sunday Journal ETHNOS OUT, BOOKS section, Sept. 25th, 2005

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'NEES DYNAMEIS : LISA SAMLOGLOU, Debut with contemporary stories in… the City with the Bachelors'

Lisa Samloglou was born and lives in Athens. She studied Economics in Greece and continued in England graduating from the University of Essex with an M.A. in literary translation. She has adapted for the radio the play by Tom Stoppard Day and Night, broadcasted by the National Radio (ERT, 1986).

She has translated prose: Patricia Dunker’s Hallucinating Foucault; Katherine Mansfield’s Something Childish but very Natural; Jayne Anne Phillips’, Machine Dreams. For many years she was actively engaged in entrepreneurial activities with special emphasis in marketing. She has been publisher and chief editor of a commercial magazine. As a writer she made her debut with the collection of short stories and novellas, The City with the Bachelors. ...

Reviews - continued

Sunday Journal ETHNOS OUT, BOOKS section, Sept. 25th, 2005

It consists of modern stories like short films. The heroes: a woman in her late twenties, ‘born with the soul of an overweight’; ‘it was only a matter of time to fit the content to the container’. A man in his thirties with a yellow tie celebrating fifty and a beige gabardine yelling his old age.

A woman in her forties with the kind of thoughts her husband does not guess, fortunately. ‘So, he gives me a dollar for my thought, and few years later, if we are still sound and healthy, I will give him two dollars to tell me what to think’.

A bachelor in his forties the job-home-job type, fatally crossing paths with a book salesman. A woman at her forties, failing as an entrepreneur, crossing paths with a Polish immigrant...It is a book that maps the contemporary city. With heroes who can choose either to destroy themselves or escape for good from the misery of their personal twilight.

ReviewMaria Samolada, EVOSMOS TYPOS Journal, November 2005

At her debut in writing Lisa Samloglou offers a contemporary work, a consistent attribute to the language, a narration that carries you away, a description of everyday life that preserves the limited dignity of our times.

ReviewBIBLIOTHIKI ELEFTHEROTYPIAS, Weekly magazine for books, Sept.2005

Seven short stories and novellas has ‘enclosed’ in her book, the debut writer who has translated Katherine Mansfield and Jayne Anne Phillips in the past. Her heroes and heroines look for bridges to connect with the other, to get the desirable communication, not always through the ‘proper’ channels.

Each of the heroes, in his own age, tries to grasp the elusive meaning of life, sometimes searching in his past to find support for his fluid sense of identity, other times looking to the future for hope. However, the city of today threatens to devour the lonely people.

Ellinika Grammata, 216 pages

ReviewAPOGEVMATINI SUNDAY, Sunday Journal, October

23d, 2005

A narrative consisting of many solitudes, with an extremely interesting topic.

A topic with many blind ends and dilemmas.

The protagonist is a woman in her forties who lives her present in her own way and she prepares her future in a post-modern way.

ReviewMania Staikou, O KOSMOS TOU EPENDITI, Journal, August 20th, 2005

The debut writer Lisa Samloglou in her collection of stories The City with the Bachelors is sketching out with dreamlike images the loneliness of the contemporary metropolis.

Each one her heroes is trapped in its own universe.

The first novella – reference to Ipsen’s Dollhouse - is the most interesting, as the real merges with the unreal. Central heroine is Efi, in her twenties,

who decides to break the bondage out of her oppressive family.

Review

MEN’ S HEALTH, Periodical, Book section, October 2005

A woman in her late twenties, born with the soul of an overweight, ‘it was only a matter of time to fit the content to the container’.

A man in his thirties ‘with a yellow tie celebrating fifty and a beige gabardine yelling his old age. A woman in her forties with the kind of thoughts her husband does not guess, fortunately.

‘So, he gives me a dollar for my thought, and few years later, if we are still sound and healthy, I will give him two dollars to tell me what to think’.

A bachelor in his forties, the job-home-job type, fatally crossing paths with a book salesman. A forty-year-old woman failing as an entrepreneur, as she crosses paths with a Polish immigrant.

You are persuaded by the theme I suppose.

Press release June 2005

The City with the Bachelors by Lisa Samloglou Series: Fiction

Chief Editor: Aris Maragopoulos Publisher: ELLINIKA GRAMMATA Pages 216

The City with the Bachelors consists of modern stories like short films. The heroes: A woman in her late twenties, ‘born with the soul of an overweight’; ‘it was only a matter of time to fit the content to the container’. A man in his thirties ‘with his yellow tie celebrating fifty and a beige gabardine yelling his old age. A woman in her forties with the kind of thoughts her husband does not guess, fortunately. ‘So, he gives me a dollar for my thought, and few years later, if we are still sound and healthy, I will give him two dollars to tell me what to think’.

A bachelor in his forties, the job-home-job type, fatally crossing paths with a book salesman. A forty-year-old woman failing as an entrepreneur, who crosses paths with a Polish immigrant.

The lonely protagonists of this book, which maps the contemporary city with dramatic accuracy and narrative vigor are faced with two choices, either to destroy themselves or to escape forever to their personal ‘twilight zone’.

CVLisa Samloglou was born and lives in Athens. She studied Economics in

Greece and continued in England graduating from the University of Essex with an M.A. in literary translation. She has adapted for the radio the play by Tom Stoppard Day and Night, broadcasted by the National Radio (ERT, 1986).

She has translated prose:

Patricia Dunker, Hallucinating Foucault, Editions Travlos, 1999.

Katherine Mansfield, Something Childish but very Natural, a selection of short stories, Editions Pataki, 1998

Jayne Anne Phillips, Machine Dreams, Editions Estia, 1988.

For many years she was actively engaged in entrepreneurial activities with special emphasis in marketing. She has been publisher and chief editor of a commercial magazine.

Her debut is a collection of short stories, The City with the Bachelors, Ed. Ellinika Grammata, 2005.