The Odyssey of Kostas Volakis

The Odyssey of Kostas Volakis PDF Author: Harry Mark Petrakis
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Greek Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description

The Odyssey of Kostas Volakis

The Odyssey of Kostas Volakis PDF Author: Harry Mark Petrakis
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Greek Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description


The Odyssey of Kostas Volakis

The Odyssey of Kostas Volakis PDF Author: Harry Mark Petrakis
Publisher: Dissertation.com
ISBN: 9780595007608
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"Every man's life is an Odyssey: it does not matter if the body remains rooted in one place. For it is the heart and spirit that journey to Ithaca." Those words from Father Marlas, parish priest to Kostas Volakis, embody the theme of this novel, which carries Kostas and his bride, Katerina from the harsh life on Crete, to the United States, through their struggles with poverty, and through their joys and sorrows with children and grandchildren. For one of their children, Kostas feels not love, but hate, which leads inexorably to murder, and, finally, to a dramatic redemption in prison.

Greek Americans

Greek Americans PDF Author: Charles C. Moskos
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351516728
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
This is an engrossing account of Greek Americans--their history, strengths, conflicts, aspirations, and contributions. This is the story of immigrants, their children and grandchildren, most of whom maintain an attachment to Greek ethnic identity even as they have become one of this country's most successful ethnic groups.

Dictionary of Midwestern Literature, Volume 1

Dictionary of Midwestern Literature, Volume 1 PDF Author: Philip A. Greasley
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253108418
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 980

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Book Description
The Dictionary of Midwestern Literature, Volume One, surveys the lives and writings of nearly 400 Midwestern authors and identifies some of the most important criticism of their writings. The Dictionary is based on the belief that the literature of any region simultaneously captures the experience and influences the worldview of its people, reflecting as well as shaping the evolving sense of individual and collective identity, meaning, and values. Volume One presents individual lives and literary orientations and offers a broad survey of the Midwestern experience as expressed by its many diverse peoples over time.Philip A. Greasley's introduction fills in background information and describes the philosophy, focus, methodology, content, and layout of entries, as well as criteria for their inclusion. An extended lead-essay, "The Origins and Development of the Literature of the Midwest," by David D. Anderson, provides a historical, cultural, and literary context in which the lives and writings of individual authors can be considered.This volume is the first of an ambitious three-volume series sponsored by the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature and created by its members. Volume Two will provide similar coverage of non-author entries, such as sites, centers, movements, influences, themes, and genres. Volume Three will be a literary history of the Midwest. One goal of the series is to build understanding of the nature, importance, and influence of Midwestern writers and literature. Another is to provide information on writers from the early years of the Midwestern experience, as well as those now emerging, who are typically absent from existing reference works.

Return Narratives

Return Narratives PDF Author: Theodora D. Patrona
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1611479959
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
This book is a comparative study of six Italian American and Greek American literary works written in the three last decades of the 20th century and examined in pairs. Based on the common theme of the authors' return, either metaphorical or literal to the country of origin and its culture, Return Narratives explores the common motifs of mythology, ritual, and storytelling where the third generation writers resort to in their quest for self-definition. With a common historical and cultural background in the old neighboring countries, Greece and Italy, and a similar reception in the new world facilitating a comparative approach, the ethnic writers of the two literatures, clearly envisage ethnic space as a site of resilience and empowerment.

Legends of Glory and Other Stories

Legends of Glory and Other Stories PDF Author: Harry Mark Petrakis
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 9780809327584
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Legends of Glory and Other Stories contains a novella and eight short stories by award-winning author Harry Mark Petrakis. In a departure from his previous, highly regarded work, Petrakis offers a fresh new perspective in the novella, “Legends of Glory.” For the first time Petrakis deals with the traditions and emotions of a small Midwestern town caught in the whirlwind of the Iraq War. In a communal rite of mourning, each character embodies a different voice, a different perspective, in regard to patriotism and pacifism. Although the novella relates to the sacrifice of a young man, the grieving of parents, and the conflicts of a family, it explores human sorrow and anger unchanged from the time of the Trojan War. In a return to his earlier lyrical prose style, Petrakis also treats us to eight beautifully crafted short stories. “Beauty’s Daughter” introduces a sullen-spirited Greek bakery owner and his lovely, more amiable wife. “The Birthday” considers the fear that most people have of the emotional and physical decline that the years bring and the reconciliation with death. In “The Wisdom of Solon,” Solon, who does not realize that life cannot be neatly categorized within the mysterious relationships between men and women, finds that every action sets in motion a series of often bewildering consequences. The question of a proper marriage match and the struggle to make the right choice mark “The Rousing of Mathon Sarlas.” And the longing to believe that something survives our mortal bodies even if reason dictates otherwise is central to “A Dishwasher’s Tale.” Completing the collection are “Christina’s Summer,” “Rites of Passage,” and “A Tale of Color,” which are also presented in an inviting prose style and individualized by engaging characters to provide readers with a cumulative sense of culture, geography, and sensibility.

Multi-ethnic Literature in the High School

Multi-ethnic Literature in the High School PDF Author: Jean H. Lightfoot
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : American literature
Languages : en
Pages : 56

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Book Description


Contemporary Novelists

Contemporary Novelists PDF Author: James Vinson
Publisher: London : St. James Press ; New York : St. Martin's Press
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 1468

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Book Description
Extensive reference guide to most important living novelists in the English language.

Contemporary Novelists

Contemporary Novelists PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : American fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 1044

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Book Description


Song of My Life

Song of My Life PDF Author: Harry Mark Petrakis
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 1611175038
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
With the discipline of a surgeon performing a critical operation, acclaimed storyteller Harry Mark Petrakis strips away layers of his nine decades of life to expose the blood and bone of a human being in his third memoir and twenty-fifth book, Song of My Life. Petrakis is unsparing in exposing his own flaws, from a youthful gambling addiction, to the enormous lie of his military draft, to a midlife suicidal depression. Yet he is compassionate in depicting the foibles of others around him. Petrakis writes with love about his parents and five siblings, with nostalgia as he describes the Greek neighborhoods and cramped Chicago apartments of his childhood, and with deep affection for his wife and sons as he recalls with candor, comedy, and charity a writer's long, fully-lived life. Petrakis recounts the near-fatal childhood illness, which confined him to bed for two years and, through hours of reading during the day and night, nurtured his imagination and compulsion toward storytelling. A high school dropout, Petrakis also recalls his work journey in the steel mills, railroad depots, and shabby diners of the city. There is farce and comedy in the pages as he describes the intricate framework of lies that drove his courtship of Diana, who has been his wife of sixty-nine loving years. Petrakis shares his struggles for over a decade to write and publish and finally, poignantly describes the matchless instant when he holds his first published book in his hands. The chapters on his experiences in Hollywood where he had gone to write the screenplay of his best-selling novel A Dream of Kings are as revealing of the machinations and egos of moviemaking as any Oliver Stone documentary. Petrakis's individual story, as fraught with drama and revelation as the adventures of Odysseus, comes to an elegiac conclusion when, at the age of ninety, he ruminates on his life and its approaching end. With a profound and searing honesty, this self-exploration of a solitary writer's life helps us understand our own existences and the tapestry of lives connecting us together in our shared human journey.