Thanassis Valtinos: New Moon: Day One

In a tour de force of innovation, memory, and distillation, Thanassis Valtinos shifts the literary ground from yet another angle.

Set in a provincial capital, in the penultimate throes of the Greek Civil War, New Moon: Day One is semi-autobiographical, a tale of two protagonists on the brink of manhood. They speak in bluntly human tones, but in precincts that echo of death the impulse to life is declared. In the very presence of Thanatos, Eros is adamant.

The elements of a screenplay are recast by Valtinos as a novel. Interposed with bursts of dialogue, and reading like stage directions, intimate scenes alternate with a wide-screen view. Fade-outs, as blank pages, punctuate the whole. Though the gaze is that of a camera — of pristine detachment — the energy is propulsive. The thread of a breathless suspense is drawn through a complex collage. It seems to precisely catch the rhythm of human becoming.

Thanassis Valtinos was born in 1932 in Kastri, Kynourias in the Peloponnese. He has written novels, novellas, short stories, and film scripts and translated ancient Greek tragedies for the theater. His work has been translated into many languages and has earned him numerous awards, including Best Film Script (Cannes Festival 1984), the Greek State Prize for Best Novel (1990), the International Cavafy Prize (2002), the Petros Haris Prize, conferred by the Academy of Athens for Lifetime Achievement (2002), the Gold Cross of Honour of the President of the Greek Democracy (2003), and the Greek State Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2012). In 2008 he was elected a member of the Greek Academy and served as its president in 2016. He is currently president of the board of directors of the Petros Haris Foundation, a position he has held since 2013.

Jane Assimakopoulos is an American writer and translator living in Ioannina, Greece. Her translations from the Greek and French include novels by award-winning writers as well as poems and stories in literary journals and anthologies in the U.S. and in England. Between 1999 and 2018 she was employed by a Greek publisher as translation editor in charge of a series of books by
Philip Roth.

Stavros Deligiorgis is a University of Iowa professor emeritus. He was educated in Bucharest, Romania and Athens, Greece, where he lives and works at present. He taught courses in English and American Literature, and Comparative Literature (Classics; Old and Middle English) at the University of Iowa and as a visiting professor at several U.S. and European universities. He has authored studies in literary theory as well as collections of translation from the Greek, Romanian, Italian, and Old Provençal languages.

Jane Assimakopoulos is an American writer and translator living in Ioannina, Greece. Her translations from the Greek and French include novels by award-winning writers as well as poems and stories in literary journals and anthologies in the U.S. and in England. Between 1999 and 2018 she was employed by a Greek publisher as translation editor in charge of a series of books by Philip Roth.

Stavros Deligiorgis is a University of Iowa professor emeritus. He was educated in Bucharest, Romania, in the U.S., and Athens, Greece, where he lives and works at present. He taught courses in English and American literature, and comparative literature (classics; Old and Middle English) at the University of Iowa and as a visiting professor at several U.S. and European universities. He has authored studies in literary theory as well as collections of translations from the Greek, Romanian, Italian, and Old Provençal languages.