What secret does the intelligent dog Dingo carry on board the whaling ship "Pilgrim" by Jules Verne? Why does Lampedusa's novel "The Leopard" begin and end with the entry and exit of a dog? What made Jean Genet so impressed by Giacometti's bronze dog? Who dared to call the lions used by the Roman army “Roman dogs”?
What really happened to the dogs that were guarding the Berlin Wall after it fell? The 70 short prose stories in The Immortality of Dogs transport us to a kaleidoscopic world full of mysteries and surprises.With a delicate style of humor, precise sadness, and linguistic dexterity, the Greek writer Costas Mavrodis reveals a beautifully crafted tapestry whose images take us across time and space to people and places, to scenes of hunting and love, to major historical events and small private moments, to literary fruits and literary description, to the richness of life and art.Canine characters, whether famous or unknown, become messengers of humanity, touching us with their loyalty, devotion and curiosity – and through them we read and understand the world. Her "immortality" and apparent ignorance of death and annihilation are contrasted with the fleeting nature of human existence.Diverse textual references - from Homer to Calvino - and careful reflections and eclectic juxtapositions allow the short stories to create a uniquely autobiographical, fragmentary postmodern, poetic-philosophical history of Greek-European culture and identity, which addresses the great questions of friendship, love, history, memory, transience and survival.And of course, let's not forget his writing style. Kostas Mavroudis (born 1948), author of five collections of poetry and six collections of prose, and editor of the important literary magazine Dendro, has been a prominent figure in the Greek literary scene for decades. His prose is characterized by essayistic elements and dense, intelligent language.
