{"id":9663,"date":"2015-08-26T12:01:35","date_gmt":"2015-08-26T16:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starshipnivan.com\/blog\/?p=9663"},"modified":"2015-11-03T02:12:09","modified_gmt":"2015-11-03T07:12:09","slug":"evghenia-fakinou-the-unknown-archmage-of-magic-realism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/?p=9663","title":{"rendered":"Evghenia Fakinou: The Unknown Archmage of Magic Realism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note:<\/strong>\u00a0 There has been intermittent discussion in SFF about the relative invisibility of non-Anglophone works.\u00a0 These rumblings have once again gained volume following the awarding of a Hugo to a novel translated from Chinese (Liu Cixin’s Three Body Problem<\/em>, translated by Ken Liu).\u00a0 Below is an essay about another major unrecognized talent handicapped by writing in a language other than English.\u00a0 The essay first appeared<\/a>, with minor variations, in SFF Portal.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

\"Fakinou\"<\/a>A while ago, I wrote an essay<\/a> about the fact that writers feel free to use Hellenic contexts (myths, history, location), blithely assuming they know my culture well enough to do so convincingly. I mentioned that contemporary Hellenic literature is virtually unknown in the Anglophone world beyond Elytis, Sef\u00e9ris, Kav\u00e1fis and Kazantz\u00e1kis \u2013 all of whom belong to the thirties. In effect, it is fashionable to pronounce Hellenic paradigms pass\u00e9 along with all other \u2018Eurocentric\u2019 sources, without ever having read Hellenic literature of any era. Lest you think I\u2019m indulging in special pleading, this lacuna has been noticed and discussed by many non-Hellenes including Roderick Beaton, a formidable literary presence with a truly deep knowledge of my history and culture.<\/p>\n

In my essay I also stated that Hell\u00e1s may be home to the best magic realist alive right now: Evghen\u00eda Fak\u00ednou. In my estimation, she\u2019s better than Salman Rushdie, Louis de Berni\u00e8res, Laura Esquivel, Alice Hoffman or Orhan Pamuk. Her work does not suffer from the defects that occasionally mar their often outstanding work \u2013 Rushdie\u2019s and Pamuk\u2019s self-congratulatory longueurs and cardboard characters (their women especially), de Berni\u00e8res\u2019 lapses into the generic, Esquivel\u2019s by-the-numbers sentimentality, Hoffman\u2019s arch quirkiness. However, Fak\u00ednou\u2019s original language and culture are heavy strikes against her. Only two of her novels have been translated, into indifferent English (a common fate, because the two languages are as different as two Indo-European cousins can be).<\/p>\n

Fak\u00ednou was born in Alexandria in 1945, to working class migrant parents who hailed from the Dodecanesean island of Symi (a beautiful but stark place, whose cosmopolitan wandering people earned their living by fishing, sponge diving and with a formidable merchant marine fleet that played a significant part in the 1821 War of Independence). Her family returned to Athens when she was a child. She studied graphic arts and worked for several years as a graphic artist, illustrator and tourist guide. In 1976, she launched a children\u2019s puppet theater show, Tin Town, which became very successful. Think politicized and stylistically circumscribed Sesame Street and you get the picture. She started writing children\u2019s books first, then novels starting in 1982 \u2013 about twenty so far, plus\u00a0 collections of linked stories.<\/p>\n

\"Astradeni\"<\/a>Fak\u00ednou\u2019s books have won several awards and are wildly popular in Hell\u00e1s: none has ever gone out of print, aided by the Hellenic publishers\u2019 sane policy of small runs. Her writing combines three attributes, each of which would make her work addictive by itself: compelling plots, vivid characters and atmospheric settings. She is a mistress of creating sustained polyphony, a skillful puppeteer whose strings never become visible. Each of her characters jumps from the page, fully alive. Each of her books is distinct; she never resorts to clich\u00e9s or cookie-cutter tactics, never repeats a successful recipe. In some cases she sticks to one narrator, first or third person; in others she switches between viewpoints \u2013 all with the illusion of effortlessness that distinguishes great dancers.<\/p>\n

To top this, Fak\u00ednou has what for me is the quintessential gift of the rare true storyteller: her novels are full of echoes. She seamlessly interweaves history and (usually revisionist) mythology as she roams through six millennia of my people\u2019s ghost-inhabited, monument-strewn cultural landscape. Yet there is no infodumping, no slowing of the plot momentum to flaunt her knowledge. If her readers are not aware of the background she evokes, the stories are still absorbing. But if they are, her stories are simply unforgettable: they etch themselves on one\u2019s long-term memory and never fade.<\/p>\n

To give you a sense of Fak\u00ednou, I will briefly outline the two of her novels that have been translated in English, fully aware that neither my descriptions nor the translations convey the potent magic she weaves.<\/p>\n

Astradhen\u00ed <\/em>(Fak\u00ednou\u2019s first novel; the word is a rare first name that means \u2018starbinder\u2019) starts deceptively as YA. We get carried along on the matter-of-fact, stripped-down voice of its narrator, a young girl whose family has been ripped off their island home by misfortune: her little brother\u2019s death devastated them both emotionally and financially. The transplantation to Athens brings the woes that always beset immigrants: the ridiculing of accents and customs, the loneliness and alienation, the forced homogenization into marginal\/ized urban living.<\/p>\n

So far, so common, if beautifully rendered. But a deep river runs underneath the main narrative: Astradhen\u00ed has visions of the young priestesses of pre-Olympian \u00c1rtemis who danced around the open-air altar of the goddess wearing bear pelts. To shake us out of the easy YA classification, the visions don\u2019t bring her insight, solace or strength. At the close of the story, an acquaintance of her father starts to rape Astradhen\u00ed. The final words are her anguished protestations, girl and priestess fused into one.<\/p>\n

Astradhen\u00ed\u2019s visions are rips in the fabric of time, vouchsafing us glimpses of a (real or half-dreamt) past when women had power, a place as beguiling as \u2013 and far less sugarcoated than \u2013 Marion Zimmer Bradley\u2019s Avalon. In that world, Astradhen\u00ed would have been a seer. Rape, embedded in the overt misogynism of both Hellenic and Byzantine traditions, is a bleeding wound in my culture and the book was notable just for bringing it up (a visual parallel happens in Angel\u00f3poulos\u2019 film Landscape in the Mist<\/em>).<\/p>\n

\"Seventh<\/a>To \u00c9vdhomo Ro\u00faho (The Seventh Garment)<\/em> tells how women carry history on their shoulders, like the Karyatids or the wives of folk ballads, buried alive so that bridges would stand. Three generations of women \u2013 Maiden, Mother, Crone \u2013 gather to perform an ancient ritual over the death of the last man in the family: the belief is that for his spirit to cross safely to the Otherworld, the women must line up the garments of the family\u2019s seven firstborn sons, one from each generation (underlining the so far unquestioned requirement for sons). The last garment is missing, which triggers the story\u2019s crisis.<\/p>\n

Through the conversations and first-person narrations of the three women, we get strobelight views of several epochs of Hellenic history: the War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire; the 1922 catastrophic defeat of the Greek army by its Turkish counterpart that uprooted the Hellenes from Asia Minor, an integral part of their homeland for four millennia; the trials of the refugees, who met a mixed welcome on the mainland; the resistance in World War II, callously betrayed by its ostensible allies; and contemporary globalization, with its atomizing effects. The men these women remember and mourn were mostly loved (though rape figures prominently again) but mostly absent: killed, imprisoned, exiled, forced to emigrate. Several myths are woven into this tapestry: D\u00e9metra\u2019s tormented search for Perseph\u00f3ne and also the wanderings of Odyss\u00e9us, fused with folk stories of sea-gods, both pagan and Christian.<\/p>\n

Though Fak\u00ednou made up the details of the ritual, it is grounded in the mourning customs of the Aegean islands. The women in her story, unsung singers, maintain the traditions while subverting them at the same time. In the end, the grandmother quietly pierces herself and bleeds to death so that her drenched tunic can serve as the missing garment. The chthonic powers accept it. By doing this she becomes an ancestor, a lofty position previously forbidden to women, and heals several rifts at once, though probably briefly.<\/p>\n

Fak\u00ednou\u2019s books are full of vision quests, awakenings, boundary crossings. All have open endings, with their protagonists poised at thresholds on the last page. At the same time, they make their readers whole by reclaiming a past that might have led to an alternative future. Fak\u00ednou is a windwalker, a weaver of spider silk. I\u2019m sorry she is not world-famous, but even sorrier for the dreamers who will never get a chance to lose \u2013 and find \u2013 themselves in her work.<\/p>\n

References and Related Essays<\/strong><\/p>\n

Roderick Beaton, Introduction to Modern Greek Literature Oxford University Press, Revised and Expanded Edition 1999<\/a><\/p>\n

Iskander, Khan Tengri<\/a><\/p>\n

The String Cuts Deeper than the Blade<\/a><\/p>\n

The Hyacinth among the Roses: The Minoan Civilization<\/a><\/p>\n

Being Part of Everyone\u2019s Furniture; Or: Appropriate Away!<\/a><\/p>\n

Yes, Virginia, Hellenes Have Christmas Traditions<\/a><\/p>\n

The Multi-Chambered Nautilus<\/a><\/p>\n

Safe Exoticism, Part 2: Culture<\/a><\/p>\n

Herald, Poet, Auteur: The\u00f3dhoros Angel\u00f3poulos (1935-2012)<\/a><\/p>\n

The Doric Column: Dh\u00f3mna Sam\u00edou (1928-2012)<\/a><\/p>\n

Close Your Eyes and Think of Ap\u00f3llon<\/a><\/p>\n

Hidden Histories or: Yes, Virginia, Romioi Are Eastern European (And More Than That)<\/a><\/p>\n

The Blackbird Singing: Sapf\u00f3 of L\u00e9svos<\/a><\/p>\n

If I Forget Thee, O My Grandmother\u2019s Lost Home<\/a><\/p>\n

Images<\/strong><\/p>\n

Evgen\u00eda Fak\u00ednou
\nAstradhen\u00ed<\/em>, first edition
\nThe Seventh Garment<\/em>, first edition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note:\u00a0 There has been intermittent discussion in SFF about the relative invisibility of non-Anglophone works.\u00a0 These rumblings have once again gained volume following the awarding of a Hugo to a novel translated from Chinese (Liu Cixin’s Three Body Problem, translated by Ken Liu).\u00a0 Below is an essay about another major unrecognized talent handicapped by writing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,12,13,7],"tags":[65,66,64,63],"class_list":["post-9663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biology-and-culture","category-history","category-science-fiction","category-writing-and-literature","tag-contemporary-greek-literature","tag-evgenia-fakinou","tag-magic-realism","tag-translations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9663\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}