iris literary agency

National Essay Award 2000

“Two Witnesses Equals One is a narrative of 150 pages whose theme is the youths’ insurgency in Athens in 2008, which was ignited by the murder of Alexandros Grigoropoulos. The narrative is included in a collection entitled What Wouldn’t Change if Everything Changed, forthcoming by Patakis Publications.

The first of the six texts in this collection is about Corfu, the town of the midway point, the metaphorical town on the borders of childhood, the borders between the gardens and the old open-air summer cinemas. The theme of the second story is the funeral fragrance of spring, the transference of the Burial [of Christ] to the scenes of the inner life. The third speaks of the compulsion of Erotic Devotion, which comes to a strange conclusion, a swan-song ending in parody. The fourth broaches the historical materialism of writing, its magical link to the History of the human body. The fifth explores the function of the healing recollection in Photography, queen of the artes moriendi, which suddenly seems to be proving its credentials in relation to the other blind images of the modern age. The last story shines a light on the embrace of beauty and death, post-modern aesthetics and the macabre, fashion and vampirism. All six texts can be read as developments of the same theme, which is the unattainable separation, the lack of the dimension of grief. All six start off as essays and end as equal ‘fantasias’ (in the musical sense). All six speak precisely, and at the same time remain faithful to the spirit of satire.

With his discerning eye for the details that comprise the larger picture, Aranitsis' novel chronicles the Kintis family, that spans three decades.

Kintis' daughter, Amalia, is a sensitive soul determined to devote her life to music, but ends up marrying Maragakis, the son of her father's attorney and political associate. They have two children together, Danae and Constantine.

At first sight this looks like a story about jealousy. However, the tale which emerges of unrequited love serves as an excuse for engaging with the pathological processes of the old world, of ownership, oedipal obsession and the urban elite. These are explored through a focus on their strangeness and on a kind of dark lyricism which they possess, and which accompanies the hero in an interminable, delirious interpretation of omens. The work is constructed out of sign language, hallucinations, and baffling suspensions and reversals of realistic behaviour, until the final disintegration.