An incidental encounter of Lambros Mitropoulos with author Theodoros Gregoriadis in Cafe Classic  in Nea Smirni, on a Sunday afternoon gave rise to this small presentation in Passage.

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Theodoros Gregoriadis is among the most notable modern Greek authors.   His work includes: "Hidden people", "The ancient phallus", "The sailor", "The dancer in the olive grove", "Waters of the peninsula", "The rag", "Out of the body", "Alouza, one thousand and one lovers ".

“Gregoriades’s heroes are not shadows, although they move like shadows some times. The author manages to shape his characters, complete their profiles, form their faces, and rest on their thoughts and actions, while his writing is flowing like quick and firm touches of a painter. In his stories, the reader is carried away with the heroes until they reach the shore, the exit or the wall that they hit and turn back to seek a new way out. The book’s heroes are moving even when they are standing still in geographical terms, even when their lives seem to be stagnating in despair, acceptance or resignation "

Aris Mentizis, Journalist

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From the last book titled “MAPS”, which contains 70 short stories, we have selected those with the most vivid colours, perhaps because fairy tale heroes only appear when they find deep and true love.
Isn’t this what happens in real life too?

Vivid colours

He recalls that when he was a kid he read a story in those small four-coloured booklets. It was about a Chinese painter who could enter his paintings and wander about in their world. As he was just a small kid, he was trying to find a rational explanation for this in his mind, but of course, could not find one. He read the story over and over again, until one night he felt someone taking his hand and asking him to follow them.

Little Kleon was wondering: would he go into the story first and then into the painting together with the painter? Or
would he enter both at the same time? He didn’t have to think hard though; he was already standing in front of a door that shut away his world. Whatever lied there before him looked like one of his own drawings; it was made of his own colours and everything seemed to be made of paper; even himself.

“But how is that possible?” he wondered.

“Fairy tale heroes”, answered the painter, “become alive the moment someone is reading the story. We are alive too, only our world is scattered around in hundreds of thousands of minds. We can exist everywhere at the same time, but when someone loves us really deeply, and reads our story over and over, then we chose to reveal ourselves to them.

You should know that we, too, are living creatures; However, we can never be sure about our actions. If a reader things
of something different, then we might indulge to that thought. So we are always prey to their thoughts and reactions, as well as to the so-called “external phenomena”.

»For us, it’s not the rain or the fire that can ruin our material. You call them “Paper”, don’t you? Well, to us, such “external phenomena” is the refusal or forgetfulness that comes along with time. Books may die forever; but there’s always someone who carries them along as long as they want to. From that point of view, we are even luckier than the author, because he loses us forever.

»That’s why I want you to remember until the very end of your life, that I took you here with me to let you see. You will carry me in your memory and if my story ever faints out, make sure you tell it to the next generation. Go ahead now, you can go back. You’re late already”.

The painter took him by the hand again, got him out of the painting, made a few steps in the real world and he became human again. Little Kleon felt that even in fairy tales there are fantastic lives.
In the meantime, he heard his mother call that he was late for school and that he had to get up and get ready as fast as he could. Then he heard her shout: “What is all this paint? How did you make such a mess of those sheets? I don’t believe this…”
“You’d better not believe this”, though Kleon, “’cause I couldn’t explain it anyway” and went to the bathroom to wash his face.