Books by Vrasidas Karalis

The narrator of the book starts a journey of discovery around the meaning of home, in a diary form, with a trip to Athens in the midst of the economic and social implosion of the country. He fuses fiction, reportage and autobiography in an attempt to illustrate the social collapse of Greece after 2009 and its subsequent lack of creative imagination. The book consists of brief snapshots based on episodes that take place in Athens, ranging from people eating rotten food in garbage bins, to contemporary political discussions at the Greek Parliament and the representation of the struggle of ordinary people to make their living. ''This is a courageous, angry and powerful book, in which like James Joyce, Vrasidas Karalis can be said to have written 'a chapter in the moral history of my race'.'' - Nicholas Murray, British biographer, poet and journalist.

The Reflections on Presence is a philosophical notebook which explores the complexities and concerns of contemporary conscience. They construct a program of 'spiritual exercises', in the tradition of Marcus Aurelius, Ignatius Loyola and Nikos Kazantzakis, starting with the recognition of contemporary disillusion followed by the gradual investigation of the interconnected nature of reality and imagination, the affirmation of the individual presence and the ethics born out of such presence. They culminate in a vision of existential transparency that links poetry, philosophy and religion through the impure materiality of the everyday being.

The history of Greek cinema post-1945 is best understood through the stories of its most internationally celebrated and influential directors.