Greek-Italian Scene

Foreword

Without Greece and Italy there would be no Europe, that much we know. No European philosophy, no European art, architecture, or literature. Nor would we have democracy or the Renaissance. Yet in the days of turbo-capitalism, Greece in particular is associated for Germans with negative headlines: a land full of corruption, mismanagement, and inefficiency, followed closely on the unprofitability-scale by mafia- and Berlusconi-tainted Italy. Of course, one still likes to vacation in these cradles of culture on the Mediterranean. Strange.

But as Orson Welles said through Citizen Kane: “In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.” Despite the polemical hyperbole, (according to the Swiss, the cuckoo clock was invented in the Black Forest) there’s something to it: Turbulent countries and turbulent times frequently produce the better art.

Contemporary literature from both countries—and especially from Greece—has unfairly been only selectively appreciated in Germany. It is primarily bestsellers and crime novelists who see publication here. Nonetheless, there are places in Berlin one can look to become acquainted with a literature beyond Donna Leon, Petros Markaris, Nikos Kasantzakis, and Umberto Eco. What follows is a small selection. I am indebted to Michaela Prinzinger and Dario Deserri for their many tips.