Athens Literary Salons

The Athens Literary Salons returns to This is Athens – City Festival. The acclaimed team from Athens Insider takes us on a journey through Athens with the authors whose books are set in Greece. Stars of world literature share their thoughts with an active and engaged audience to reflect on their lives and loves in Greece, establishing a high intellectual benchmark for the TiACF.

Athens Insider is pleased to present an exciting line-up of speakers at the Athens Literary Salon as part of This is Athens – City Festival at the University of Athens Museum in Plaka. The literary panel will discuss a wide range of subjects – conservation, history, poetry and Greek folk music – while underpinning their deep connection with Greece.

British writer and passionate conservationist Julian Hoffman will be in conversation with acclaimed writer and anthropologist Sofka Zinovieff at 18:00, while Poet and translator Joshua Barley dives into the centuries-old oral tradition of Greek folk songs and speaks to award-winning biographer and curator Ian Collins at 19:30. The two discussions will be interspersed with a wine tasting courtesy of Wines of Athens.

In the first discussion, Wainwright-shortlisted writer and conservationist Julian Hoffman whose Irreplaceable The Fight to Save our Wild Places is a passionate and lyrical work of reportage and advocacy, presses on the need to support wilding projects to bring back diversity of life. As a writer, he brings a lyrical eye to this world of great physical beauty and gnarled legacy. As a campaigner, he claims “not to be in blind opposition to progress but in opposition to blind progress.” Julian Hoffman speaks to writer and anthropologist Sofka Zinovieff. The conversation will be held in English from 18:00 to 19:00.

The second event features award-winning writer Joshua Barley, whose latest book Greek Folk Songs brings the songs to an English readership for the first time in over a century, capturing the lyricism of the Greek in modern English verse. The Greek folk songs—Dimotika Tragoudia in Greek— are songs of the Greek countryside, from island towns to mountain villages. They have been passed down from generation to generation in a centuries-long oral tradition, lasting until the present. They are songs of every aspect of old Greek life: from love songs and ballads, to laments for the dead, to songs of travel and brigands. Written down at the start of the nineteenth century, they are the first works of modern Greek poetry, playing a crucial role in forming the country’s modern language and literature. Still known and sung today, they are the Homer of modern Greece. Joshua Barley speaks to Ian Collins, Runciman-award winning biographer and curator. The conversation will be held in English at the University of Athens History Museum from 19:30 to 20:30.

Limited seating.

Please email info@insider-magazine.gr to reserve your place.

A wine and cheese reception will follow the discussion, by Wines of Athens. Books available for sale. Please arrive at least 20 minutes before the start of the event.