Dark Tales

NATIONAL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE 2014 Andreas Karayan’s novel Dark Tales is a coming-of-age, bildungsroman, concerned with the artistic development of the author, a genre which is rare in the Greek language. In Dark Tales the protagonist, the narrator, familiar to us from other books by Andreas, is a sensitive and provocative artist searching for the truth about art and life, through his travels. His journeys take him to Berlin during the fall of the Wall, to Athens during the dictatorship and to Alexandria after the Arab Spring. His wandering footsteps are guided by the vital quest for authenticity in art, friendship and love. Through the confessional nature of his narrative, the author builds his own theory of life, reclaiming the erotic union of soul and body, away from social compromise and guilt, as a great good. The novel, deeply philosophical and political, opposes the structures of power that check erotic desire and sexuality. In doing so it demolishes stereotypes, and gives respect to Difference. Dark Tales follows Immoral Tales (Armida Books, 2014 also the recipient of the National Prize for Literature 2011)