Omnibus. A selection of excerpts translated in Spanish by Javier Aldabalde and Marcelo de Maio. Granada, March 2017.
Greek Avant Garde Poetry. Collected and Edited by Panos Bosnakis. Big Bridge Magazine, Autumn 2016.
Levure Litteraire. A selection of exerpts from the Poena Damni trilogy in the Greek original and translations in four languages. Issue 12, May 2016
A selection of excerpts from the Poena Damni trilogy, translated in Spanish translation by Alessandro Lo Coco. Madrid, Spain, October 2015
Trafika Europe. Excerpt from With the people from the bridge. Amsterdam, The Netherlands, March 2015
ALPIALDELAPALABRA. Excerpts from Poena Damni in Spanish translation.
THE GREEN DOOR. Various excerpts from Z213:EXIT and The First Death. Illustrated by Sylvie Proidl. The Green Door, Issue 8, Ghent Belgium 2012
International Writing Program, University of Iowa. Excerpts from Poena Damni including first draft publication of "With the People from the Bridge"
TUDA Magazine. Excerpt from Nyctivoe translated in Portuguese by Eduardo Miranda. October 2011
Reconstruction (extracts 1, 2 from Z213: Exit in Greek original and English translation), October 2010
Othervoices Poetry Project(extracts 2 and 3 from Z213: Exit in English translation). May 2009.
Famous poets and poems (translation of extract 5 from Z213: Exit)
Nth Position (translation of extract 5 from Z213: Exit as a previous draft)
Poeticanet (translations of extracts 6 and 8 from Z213: Exit).
Poetrybay (English translation of extract 9 from Z213:Exit)
Mg Version Datura (English translation of extract 10 from Z213: Exit)
Poetrysz (English translation of extracts 11,12 from Z213: Exit)
Segue (Extracts 10,11,12 are also published in Segue, University of Miami, followed by an interview with the author)
Snr Review (English translation of extracts 13,14,15 from Z213: Exit)
A Arte de Traduzir Poena DamniUma Nota sobre Traduzir a Trilogia de Dimitris Lyacospor Shorsha Sullivan tradução de Eduardo Miranda
Z213: EXCERPTS IN GERMAN/RUMANIAN ANTHOLOGY KLAK VERLAG, BERLIN/TIMISOARA, RUMANIA
Excerpt from Z213: EXIT translated in Bengali by Arjun Bandyopadhyay in Baak Magazine
A Dissociated Locus: Dimitris Lyacos Interviewed by Andrew Barrett - BOMB Magazine. The writer of the Poena Damni trilogy on analytic philosophy, polyphonous narrators, and alternate consciousness.
Your work has been widely characterised as “genre-defying”, “avant-garde” and “postmodern”, engaging with major narratives of the Western Canon and utilising fragmentation. In the epigraph to your third book in your Poena Damni trilogy, The First Death, you quote Hodges: “Nothing in this book is original, except perhaps by mistake”. Can you comment on how this relates to your writing?
In the fall of 2018, Shoestring Press finally released Shorsha Sullivan’s English translation of the complete trilogy. This past spring, Lyacos went on a US signing tour, culminating with a reading in Los Angeles at Beyond Baroque on May 30. That is where I had the pleasure of meeting him. As we sat on a staircase waiting for the event to begin, an interesting conversation was sparked. The interview that follows was born of that informal exchange, which continued via email
It can seem all too rare to come across poetry as ambitious and exciting as that of Dimitris Lyacos. His work exists at the intersection of the classical and the postmodern, the poetic and the dramatic, free verse and form. Exploring relationships with death, resurrection, and memory, to name just a few, Lyacos creates a dystopic epic for the modern world – not a post-apocalyptic adventure, but rather an exploration of a world hauntingly similar to our own. This is poetry that makes you think as well as feel. Poetry as finely layered as mica; each (re)reading an unveiling.
Dimitris Lyacos (b. 1966) is a contemporary Greek poet and playwright. He is the author of the Poena Damni trilogy. Renowned for its genre-defying form and the avant-garde combination of themes from literary tradition with elements from ritual, religion, philosophy and anthropology, Lyacos’s work reexamines grand narratives in the context of some of the enduring motifs of the Western Canon. Poena Damni, [...]
Σ. Δόικας: Θα έλεγε κανείς ότι το έργο σου εντάσσεται στο πλαίσιο του μεταμοντέρνου καθώς εμπεριέχει στοιχεία όπως η αποσπασματικότητα, το εφήμερο, η ασυνέχεια, η αποδόμηση της γλώσσας και των κωδικών επικοινωνίας, η κατακερματισμένη αίσθηση ταυτότητας. Αισθάνεσαι ότι ανήκεις στο ευρύτερο πλαίσιο του μεταμοντερνισμού; Δ. Λυάκος: Για να ξεκινησουμε και λιγο αστειευομενοι, κανονικα δεν πρεπει να απαντησω σε αυτη την ερωτηση, η μαλλον δεν πρεπει να απαντησω κανονικα σε αυτη την ερωτηση. Εν οψει του θανατου του συγγραφεα θα σου ελεγε ο Barthes, ο Λυακος δεν εχει καμια προτεραιοτητα εναντι κανενος αλλου αναγνωστη να ερμηνευσει και να κατηγοριοποιησει το κειμενο. Αν καταλαβαινω καλα, αυτο εννοεις οταν με ρωτας αν ανηκω, προφανως εννοεις αν ανηκει το κειμενο. Το να ανηκα «εγω» στο μεταμοντερνισμο θα σημαινε οτι εργαζομαι συνειδητα με σκοπο τη συγγραφη βιβλιων που θα εμπιπτουν στην κατηγορια του μεταμοντερνου – αυτο φυσικα δεν μπορει να ισχυει, και ουτε χαιρομαι, η λυπαμαι οταν η κριτικη συνδεει η κατηγοριοποιει τα βιβλια μου κατ’ αυτο τον τροπο. Οι κριτικες που διαβαζω διιστανται, καποιοι μιλουν για μεταμοντερνισμο, καποιοι αλλοι για επιστροφη του High Modernism. Ειλικρινα αυτες οι κατηγοριοποιησεις μου θυμιζουν την εμμονη της σκεψης με την αναζητηση ταυτοτητων και ετεροκαθορισμων που περιεγραφε ο Adorno.
Excerpt in various languages published in Specimen Magazine - The Babel Review of Translations
Dimitris Lyacos’s cross-genre trilogy Poena Damni is among the most well-received pieces of contemporary European literature ...
Dimitris Lyacos’s cross-genre trilogy Poena Damni is among the most well-received pieces of contemporary European literature. Revised and rewritten over a period of three decades, the trilogy is currently translated into twenty languages with the English Box Set Edition having appeared in 2018, when Lyacos was also mentioned for the Nobel Prize. [...]
In 2019 I interviewed Dimitris Lyacos on the occasion of the US tour/launch of his trilogy, Poena Damni, which had been recently released in the English complete edition. When we met, he had just read for the inmates of a few Arizona prisons. He had also visited for the first time Los Angeles’s “Skid Row,” which reviewers of his work had compared, on occasion, to the setting of his second book, With the People from the Bridge. [...]
Dimitris Lyacos, poeta greco classe ’66, nel corso di un trentennio di attività letteraria, ha composto il trittico Poena Damni, oggi disponibile in italiano nell’elegante cofanetto edito dal Saggiatore (traduzione di Viviana Sebastio, pagine 328, euro 23). [...]
[...]De unde vin? cum mă numesc ? încotro mă duc ? să iau loc, dacă vreau, să stau puțin. Să mă liniștesc, umblam de multă vreme fără țintă până să intru aici și mă temeam s-o iau de la început. Să facă lumina mai mică sau era bine așa? Să nu se dezbrace. Eu să mă întind iar ea să așeze la picioarele mele ca s-o văd. Așa cum mi-o imaginasem cu o seară în urmă când ea se arătase la freastră. Atunci o doream. Glasuri din stradă și din celelalte încăperi, râsete. Pantalonul așezat cu grijă pe spătarul scaunului. La ce-i trebuie șervețelul de hârtie ? Mă culc cu picioarele întinse și lipite și mâinile pe lângă corp. Ca-ntr-un sicriu. Un scurt răstimp îmi țin răsuflarea. Îdar e mai bine să respir, calm și mai rar. Începe, îmi întorc privirea în sus spre tavan. E alb, un cearceaf întins la doi metri deaspra noastră. Măntreabă dacă vreau mai încet sau mai repede, eu nu simțeam nimic i-am zis că puțin mai rar. Senzația unui mădular străin lipit de trupul meu. Un mădular străin care-mi iese din trup. Înapoi înainte, de parcă ar curăța țeava puștii. Înainte înapoi, acum ceva mai lent.Țâțele ei opintindu-se să iasă afară. Eu îmi mișc șalele în sus și-n jos, așa-i mai bine, încet, apoi nițel mai riute. Privea în jos mâna ei așteptând grijulie. O simt cum mă apasă și-apoi cum se deschide și se moaie. O simt pompându-mi sângele în vine, tot mai puternic, nu pricep cum. Voiam doar s-o privesc cum vine peste mine. Nu, încă nu, o clipă, numai oglinda, iar peretele alb, trupul ei musculos peste mine. Pentru un moment nu mai privești niciunde, doar simți, cum trupul se umple, cum saliva coboară, pe dinăuntru fiara zgreapțănă și dă să iasă, și tu ai vrea să ieși, fiara insetată impinge dinăuntru ca să iasă din mintea ta, plină ochi, de dă pe dinafară. Dă pe dinafară, printre degetele ei se năpustește și tu urci spe sâni. Și apoi, apoi parcă nici nu mai ești, parcă ar fi murit și fiara iar eu m-am slobozit de tot într-însa. O, de-aș rămâne tot așa, golit de toate, gol și curat. Atunci lumea ți se ridică drept în fața, alinată și simplă, pașnică și cu- rată sub ochii tăi. Atunci va fi, atunci nu va fi bai, oricât de singur aș rămâne. Zâmbi ca și cum ar fi înțeles, aveam să plec să mă întorc s- o doresc din nou, acum la ea mă gândesc, măcar de-ar fi să mai fie odată. Iă șervețelul și mă șterge. Câteva clipe, apăsat, ca și cum ar stoarce un furuncul.[...]