Ersi Sotiropoulos

Untitled novel

The novel I will be working on takes place in a single hour—sixty minutes within the mind of a Greek diplomat in Paris undergoing a brain MRI. Dreading the results, he is also nervous about an official inquiry into illegal refugee visas. As he reflects on his involvement, his conviction of his own innocence wavers: the boundaries between innocence and guilt, right and wrong, become increasingly blurred. To some extent, though fictional, the book will address certain urgent issues confronting us now and in the future. Following an imaginary line of human greatness and folly, hope and disillusionment, it will examine the somehow mystified intersection between money, migration, politics, and personal responsibility.

Ersi Sotiropoulos is a poet and novelist who lives in Athens, Greece. Her work has been translated into many languages, and has been awarded in Greece with the National Book Prize twice, the Book Critics’ Award and the Athens Academy Prize. She has also received the Dante Alighieri Prize for her poetry in Italy and has been shortlisted for the European Book Prize. She has written scripts for film and television and participated in exhibitions of visual poetry. Her novel What’s Left of the Night won the Prix Méditerranée Étranger 2017 in France and the ALTA Award 2019 in the US.