There has always been a great love for Pasolini’s work in Greece. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth, many events were held, including an exhibition and film screenings at the Italian Cultural Institute.
The book by Yiannis Pappas gives a full portrait of the artist and helps us to better understand his work while shedding light on his murder, which to this day remains essentially unsolved.
Could you briefly describe the layout of this version of Pasolini?
The book was published on the 100th anniversary of Pasolini’s birth. There are 7 sections in the book. The first includes texts by Pasolini himself on various emblematic themes of Pasolini’s concerns, such as Marxism, the role of television and consumption in the development of modern man, Pasolini’s relationship with power and religion, and many others. The second section, which is the longest, contains the most essential interviews with Pasolini, allowing us to gain an in-depth understanding of the great thinker’s personality. The third section is dedicated to the events leading up to the murder, but also to the investigations that took place in 2009, 34 years after the crime. In the fourth section, Pasolini’s friends and relatives write about him and their relationship with him, shedding light on many aspects of his personality. The fifth and sixth sections contain poems by Greek and Italian poets dedicated to Pasolini, as well as his letters to various important people. The book concludes with four of Pasolini’s emblematic poems and the only bibliography on the poet in Greek so far.
What is it about Pasolini’s life and work that touches you the most?
What touches me most is the struggle he made to establish himself on the Italian cultural scene, the great difficulties he went through and his tragic and unjust death. He was brutally murdered and left at an age when he could still have had much to offer. But the work he left us is multi-dimensional and very important. It is at the discretion of young people to discover and study it since much of his multi-dimensional work has been translated into Greek.
