Synopsis
“Katarameni and the Good Luck” is a story that knits narratives of the pre-WWII Greek diaspora in Australia, a period that has gained little attention in Australian writing. Based on detailed past interviews this intensely woven story charts fictionally the painful chronicle of two families and their obsessive striving through the post war period of the 1950s to the 1970s, while focusing on the interaction of the central character with the confronting and extraordinary behavioural modification techniques of the 1970s and the consequences on those affected. Ultimately it is story of considerable pain but also of forgiveness and resolution.
Many of the values explored in this work are out of time, yet they represent authentically, the values of a particular time and those that carried them then, and that makes them resonant to the modern reader. The values of multiculturalism and other more modern sensibilities may provide controversial counterpoint to more current values, but these are managed with respect and sensitivity.
Two sections of this work have been published previously as short stories: Uncle Christophoros, Southerly Summer 1996/7 and Exile Island Magazine Summer 1995/6.
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