EUPL 2019 European Prize for Literature 2019

Winner of Klepsydra Magazine Prize, 2019

National Special Prize for Fostering Dialogue in Sensitive Social Matters, 2019

One night in December, in a dark corner of the harbor, three men burn a homeless man alive. The man’s name was Sebastian and he had a reputation as a formidable storyteller. Paul, the youngest of the three perpetrators, devastated by the brutality of the crime, begins to look for information on the victim, hoping to assuage his feelings of guilt. In his confusion, he believes that by bringing to light the dead man’s story, he will bring the actual man back to life. Asking around at homeless haunts, he discovers Sebastian’s friends: Ex, Marconi, Lucky and Yannis. He asks them to tell him their story and the story of their dead friend, and without realizing it he becomes trapped in a strange world. While at first the stories seem to be made up of facts, gradually the narratives become more complex.

Sebastian remains, however, the great absentee.

What are their reasons and motives for giving different and often conflicting testimonies? Where does the myth stop and where does the truth begin? Who was Sebastian in the end?

A descent into the hell of society’s margins; a journey through narrative heaven; a labyrinth which may be hiding the meaning of life.

New Day narrates the human adventure – murder and redemption, cruelty and compassion, being at its core an allegory for the natural and the supernatural essence of narration.

“My new book, entitled New Day, chronicles the adventures of a group of homeless men living in a Mediterranean port. It is a story about life and death, about crime and punishment, about solidarity and companionship, but also an allegory for the physics and metaphysics of narration.”

Kastaniotis, 2018,682 p.