The Seventh Elephant

Description

Clutching his vodka and his memories, he seeks refuge on an island in the Cyclades. There by chance he meets a young woman who reactivates love's vocabulary. His survival instinct faintly reappears through the distorting mirror of alcohol. Yet the craving is an irresistible, clever adversary that shows no mercy. He is drawn by his love to places that affect his emotional world ever more forcefully. Moving from Paris and Munich to London and a mountain village in central Greece, he meets a young woman and it becomes clear that the greatest magic is to be found in reality, not the bottle.

Alexis Stamatis is a well known Greek author, and poet. He was born in Athens, Greece in 1960 and studied Architecture at the National Technical University of Athens and took postgraduate degrees in Architecture and Cinematography in London. He has published five novels. His second novel, Aar Flaubert (Kedros 2000), a critically acclaimed best seller in Greece, has been published in France, Italy, Spain, Russia, Bangladesh and Serbia. Bar Flaubert has been adapted to a screenplay by the author and the director Vassilis Douvlis. Alexis Stamatis has also published six books of poetry. His second book The Architecture of Interior Spaces, was awarded the Nikiforos Vrettakos Prize in 1994. Owo collections of his poems have been translated in Great Britain. He has written the libretti for 2 musical pieces by the composer Theo Abazis, performed in Megaron Mousikis and the Chora theatre. In 2004, he participated at the world famous International Writing Program of the University of Iowa through a Greek Fulbright Artists & Art-Scholars Award. In 2007, the US publishing house Etruscan press has won the 1st International Literary award by he US National Endowment of Arts to publish his novel American Fugue. He has represented Greece in various Book Festivals and seminars all over the world. He currently works as for columnist for the Ethnos daily newspaper.

A masterly novel, with an appealing plot...a considerable achievement" - Eleutherotypia"Stamatis's many-sided story is both lively and elegant...almost theatrical" - Kathimerini