Tuesday, June 07, 2016

Greece’s Eua Ionnou says Don't leave the EUOIA

Greece’s Eua Ionnou (1971-), co-created with Kelvin Corcoran, says Don't Leave the EUOIA  (European Union Of Imaginary Authors).

Eua Ionnou was born in Meligalas in the Peloponnese, a community she came to despise as a parochial tractor town redolent of manure and devoid of any thought beyond agriculture. Raised by illiterate shepherds, she ran away to Istanbul and made a precarious living as an unofficial tour guide and transgender magician. Whilst in Istanbul she became fluent in Turkish, French and English and, crucially, discovered the work of George Gemistus, Γεώργιος Γεμιστός the late Byzantine philosopher Plethon. Almost all her work, in the light of Plethon’s teachings, is a single project – The Golden Restoration of the Byzantine Empire. This bought Ionnou in to conflict with the Turkish authorities and led to her deportation. Her publisher Νέα Ορθόδοξη Εκδόσεις (New Orthodox Publications, NOP in the west), closed down in 2008 two weeks after the publication of her magnum opus.