Η έκτη σφραγίδα

by Maria Lampadaridou Pothou, Μαρία Λαμπαδαρίδου-Πόθου

403 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Author of more than twenty novels, Maria Lampadaridou Pothou is a best selling novelist in Greece, honoured by the Academy of Athens and other literary societies. Some of her novels are set in the Byzantine period and some are based on contemporary life with a strong existential and supernatural element. She has also written poetry and theatre. Her plays have been performed in Greece and abroad. Works of hers have been translated into French, Swedish and English, and are included in literary courses in universities in Greece and abroad. Her poetic work The Mystic Passage was nominated by the Greek Ministry of Culture for the Prize of Europe.

Maria was born in the small Greek island of Lemnos, in Greece, where she grew up, before going to the Panteion University in Athens to study political sciences. A French government fellowship subsequently enabled her to study theatre at Sorbonne University. She is currently living in Athens, Greece, where she has spent most of her life with her husband and son.

Maria says of her work: "I write because by writing I find beauty. To speak about terror or human cruelty is to seek a way for beauty and justice. To write is to go against. All my novels, historical or not, are a path from the soul to the soul." Her play "Antigone or the Nostalgia of tragedy," a modern version of the Sophoclean tragedy, was written in 1967 as a protest against the Greek dictatorship. The play was performed in the US (California State University at Hayward) in 1996.

Natalia and Christina is the author’s first novel published in the UK. More information about her work can be found on her personal webpage, http://www.marialpothou.gr/