iris literary agency

Let this world remain

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The plot of the novel is based on a real fact and it takes place in one year’s time. The main characters are members of a family: the father, a 63 year-old pharmacist, the eldest daughter, 28 year-old Eve, a biologist doing research concerning microchips that could recall the memory, and the teenager son Aris, aged 17. These three are also the narrators of the story as each chapter is presented by one of them, in his own particular style.

Their lives seem ordinary and without major problems when suddenly an accident occurs and everything falls apart. During a school trip to Rome, Daphne, one of Aris’ class mates with whom he is in love, falls from the balcony of the hotel room, as she is drunk and stoned with drugs. Aris is accused, although there is no proof he was the one who provided the drugs to Daphne. The life of the whole family gets upside down, since they have to deal with a lot of problems – in their work, in their neighborhood, at school, with the media as well as the apparent conflict of generations. Under the given circumstances each one of them has to come to terms with various unresolved issues, to reconsider his/her relations with the others and particularly for Aris it is a passage to adulthood. At the end of the school year, Aris decides to make a trip to France in order to find his mother who left them when he was 4 years old. He meets different people, has a lot of experiences and discovers several contemporary issues in Europe, such as migration, crisis effects etc. One year later, the whole family’s life has changed a lot. They have all moved on..

 

Kedros, 2018, P.312.

 

Konomara Lila

Lila Konomara was born in Athens in 1960. She studied contemporary literature in Paris and worked for several years as a professor at the French Institute in Athens. She now works as a translator. For her book Macao she received the Diavazo prize for best first-time author in 2003. And The Dinner was in the short-list of Diavazo prize. In 2017 she was invited in the Villa Concordia project where she finished Let this world remain.

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