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The Heart and Its Reasons
Love, longing, loneliness, and betrayal… sailing around the realm of the heart.
Steering a path around islands of the past and the present, mythology and history, locals and expatriates, refugees and emigrants, loneliness and aloneness, the fragrance of herbs and the stink of prejudices, the stories in this book traverse the multifarious landscapes of the heart. Setting course by Greece – a country filled with the light and darkness of its past, with wounds still oozing from its wars – the stories explore a space that is both familiar, unfamiliar, and uncannily universal: the haunted, multilayered, enticing, and bewitching chambers of the heart. The sutures keeping it together are pride and longing: for mother, for father, for home; for recognition, for acceptance, for love, for truth; for a better world.
From the back cover:
“Wistful and bittersweet: a collection of engaging stories. Stella Pierides does not shy away from depicting suffering and loss, but a distinctive feature of her work is how she shows her clearly-drawn characters gradually making sense of even the most chaotic of lives. She calls upon her Greek heritage and pan-European outlook to tackle themes of youth and age, the burdens of history, and the irrepressibility of hope.”
--Katie Low, University of Oxford
.
“Pierides reads and renders our soul with the spectacular clarity of the Greek classics and the depth of the world’s greatest introspective writers. Masterfully portrayed characters, whether they find themselves at crossroads or in seemingly everyday situations, wrestle the often Procrustean tendencies of time, traditions, and heartaches, to ultimately glimpse surprising answers to riddles old and new. These eloquent, hypnotic stories translate the experience of Greek expatriates, contemporary hermits, war veterans, daughters, mothers, and many others, into the universal language of a perpetually searching, truth-thirsty humanity. At once actual and mythic, they blend individual memory and the memory of history, to generate a distinct portrait of the European spirit…”
—Mia Avramut, writer, Essen, Germany
Steering a path around islands of the past and the present, mythology and history, locals and expatriates, refugees and emigrants, loneliness and aloneness, the fragrance of herbs and the stink of prejudices, the stories in this book traverse the multifarious landscapes of the heart. Setting course by Greece – a country filled with the light and darkness of its past, with wounds still oozing from its wars – the stories explore a space that is both familiar, unfamiliar, and uncannily universal: the haunted, multilayered, enticing, and bewitching chambers of the heart. The sutures keeping it together are pride and longing: for mother, for father, for home; for recognition, for acceptance, for love, for truth; for a better world.
From the back cover:
“Wistful and bittersweet: a collection of engaging stories. Stella Pierides does not shy away from depicting suffering and loss, but a distinctive feature of her work is how she shows her clearly-drawn characters gradually making sense of even the most chaotic of lives. She calls upon her Greek heritage and pan-European outlook to tackle themes of youth and age, the burdens of history, and the irrepressibility of hope.”
--Katie Low, University of Oxford
.
“Pierides reads and renders our soul with the spectacular clarity of the Greek classics and the depth of the world’s greatest introspective writers. Masterfully portrayed characters, whether they find themselves at crossroads or in seemingly everyday situations, wrestle the often Procrustean tendencies of time, traditions, and heartaches, to ultimately glimpse surprising answers to riddles old and new. These eloquent, hypnotic stories translate the experience of Greek expatriates, contemporary hermits, war veterans, daughters, mothers, and many others, into the universal language of a perpetually searching, truth-thirsty humanity. At once actual and mythic, they blend individual memory and the memory of history, to generate a distinct portrait of the European spirit…”
—Mia Avramut, writer, Essen, Germany
104 pages, Paperback
First published October 22, 2014
About the author
Stella Pierides
9 books14 followersurl https://stellapierides.com/
Born August 21st
Recent books: "Of This World" (Red Moon Press, 2017): http://bit.ly/2jebbD7,
"The Heart and Its Reasons" (Amazon.co.uk), “Feeding the Doves” (Fruit Dove Press, 2013) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Feeding-Doves...) and “In the Garden of Absence” (Fruit Dove Press, 2012 - poetry)
Stella Pierides is a British writer and poet of Greek descent. She divides her time between Neusaess, Germany, and London, England. She is married and has two adult daughters. Stella enjoys reading, writing, feltmaking, gardening, film, music, food, and working long hours.
In her work, she explores the intersections of cultural, social, and psychological aspects of life.
Stella serves on the Board of Directors of The Haiku Foundation (THF). She introduces haiku as a course tutor at the Parkinsons Art Academy.
Stella has co-edited "Even Paranoids Have Enemies" (Routledge, 1998) and "Beyond Madness" (JKP, 2002) and published articles and reviews in other books and journals.
Her selections for the theme “Haiku of the Senses” appeared in The Haiku Foundation’s Per Diem: Daily Haiku feature, March 2012, and can be viewed in the THF Per Diem Archive.
A member of the Haiku Society of America, and the British Haiku Society, she is also listed in The Haiku Foundation’s Haiku Registry.
Places to find her work:
The Haiku Foundation‘s Haiku Registry: http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/poe...
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/stella.pierides
Twitter: http://twitter.com/stellapierides
Stella’s Stones: http://stellasstones.tumblr.com
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/stellapierides/p...
Born August 21st
Recent books: "Of This World" (Red Moon Press, 2017): http://bit.ly/2jebbD7,
"The Heart and Its Reasons" (Amazon.co.uk), “Feeding the Doves” (Fruit Dove Press, 2013) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Feeding-Doves...) and “In the Garden of Absence” (Fruit Dove Press, 2012 - poetry)
Stella Pierides is a British writer and poet of Greek descent. She divides her time between Neusaess, Germany, and London, England. She is married and has two adult daughters. Stella enjoys reading, writing, feltmaking, gardening, film, music, food, and working long hours.
In her work, she explores the intersections of cultural, social, and psychological aspects of life.
Stella serves on the Board of Directors of The Haiku Foundation (THF). She introduces haiku as a course tutor at the Parkinsons Art Academy.
Stella has co-edited "Even Paranoids Have Enemies" (Routledge, 1998) and "Beyond Madness" (JKP, 2002) and published articles and reviews in other books and journals.
Her selections for the theme “Haiku of the Senses” appeared in The Haiku Foundation’s Per Diem: Daily Haiku feature, March 2012, and can be viewed in the THF Per Diem Archive.
A member of the Haiku Society of America, and the British Haiku Society, she is also listed in The Haiku Foundation’s Haiku Registry.
Places to find her work:
The Haiku Foundation‘s Haiku Registry: http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/poe...
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/stella.pierides
Twitter: http://twitter.com/stellapierides
Stella’s Stones: http://stellasstones.tumblr.com
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/stellapierides/p...
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