FICTION

• The Spoils of August, short stories, Alexandria, 2001
• The Same Story of My Life, short stories, Alexandria, 2002
• The Rematch, novel, Metaichmio, 2004
• Woman at Half Past Two, novel, Synchronoi Orizontes, 2006 (6th printing)
• One Coffee, a Thousand More to Follow, novella, Nisides, 2010
• It Is Always August, novel, Synchronoi Orizontes, 2011
• When I Was a Little Child..., short prose pieces, Billeto, 2013
• Jazz, Ailments and Other Matters, short stories, Kedros, 2015
• Boheme and Ricardo: Three Novellas and an Encounter, Kedros, 2018
• The Nearness of Things, short stories, Nisides, 2021
• A Room of His Own, short stories, Romi, 2025
• The Melody of the Statues, novel, Vakchikon, 2026

POETRY

Dortia: Poems of Friends, poetry, 2012

ESSAYS AND CRITICISM

• Words: A Poetic Essay, literary supplement of Eneken Editions, Thessaloniki, 2009
• A Haven in Conversation with Periklis Sfyridis, Billeto, 2010
• Penetrations into the Books of Others: Studies and Book Reviews (2003–2011), Nisides, 2011
• A Garden of Books: Reading Thessalonian and American Prose Writers, essays, Nisides, 2023

CONTRIBUTIONS TO COLLECTIVE VOLUMES

• The Fiction Writer Vasilis Tsiampousis, by Sotiria Stavrakopoulou and Panagiotis Goutas, edited by Sotiria Stavrakopoulou, Municipality of Thessaloniki – Vafopouleio Cultural Centre, Literary Publications Series No. 9, 2010
• Papadiamantis Through the Eyes of Younger Writers, anthology edited by Ilias Gris, Educational Foundation of the Journalists’ Union of Macedonia and Thrace, 2011
• Poetry and Prose of the Members of the Thessaloniki Society of Writers (1980–2015), Romi Editions, 2016 (editor)
• Christos Zampounis, PAOK Afterwards, Fereniki Editions, 2016
• The Visitation of Saint Paisios, Athanasios Altintzis Editions, 2017
• Three Women Poets of Thessaloniki: Alexandra Bakonika, Chloi Koutsoumbeli and Katerina Kousoula (collection of previously unpublished texts on their work), introduction by Dioni Dimitriadou, edited and with an afterword by Kostas Th. Rizakis, Koukkida, 2019
• Anthology of Love Poetry, Romi Editions, 2020
• 1821 Through the Eyes of Contemporary Writers, edited by Elpidoforos Intzebelis, 24 Grammata Editions, 2021
• 33 Stories about 1821, Gema Editions, 2021

Αντωνίου Τούσα 20, 54250, ΘΕΣΣΑΛΟΝΙΚΗ

Τηλ. 2310.322894  και 6932232650

He had grown old now, nearing ninety. His wife had been dead for years. He had long been at odds with his children over matters of inheritance. They no longer came to visit him; they had stopped even greeting him, and his grandchildren were never sent to be fussed over by their grandfather. There were moments when he no longer wished to read, nor to write. He had grown weary of writing; all those years among books and printed pages had brought him little comfort. The modest reputation he had acquired—far beneath his talent and significance—was beginning to fade with time. Two or three good friends, having failed to reap the benefits they had hoped for from their association with him, had abandoned him. Once again, he experienced firsthand what it meant to be left out in the cold, much like those who, in ancient times, were said to have been paralysed by the chill in the baths beneath the catacombs of Saint Demetrius.

In the twilight of his life, he would have liked to read Chekhov again, but even that was no longer possible. Blindness had robbed him of much of his sight. He could see only through his left eye, and even then dimly, with blurred vision. The woman who cleaned his flat and cooked for him regularly was his only consolation. Her name was Stavroula, an educated woman in her fifties from Aridaia. To earn her living, she cleaned other people's homes. There was also a well-known journalist from the city who visited him from time to time, carrying a tape recorder in his hand, eager to record lengthy interviews. He coaxed from him confessions about the past, intending to turn them into a television series. From the beginning, the old man had sensed sincerity in the journalist's intentions and had opened his door to him.

Now, however, with the coronavirus spreading, he had pushed everyone away. He wanted to see no one. He stopped the recordings, explaining to the journalist that he suffered from a serious underlying condition and that social contact posed a danger to his health. He withdrew into his shell and made his solitary way towards the end. He no longer switched on the television either; the images of deaths and coffins brought on by the pandemic darkened his heart.

Only for Stavroula did he unlock the front door of his flat. He would seat her, unmasked, on the sofa opposite while he remained curled up in his familiar armchair, and listen as she read aloud, in her soft, murmuring voice, The Lady with the Dog by the great Russian master. Stavroula read the novella quietly, and he could never quite tell whether she was narrating a story or singing him a lament.

Stavroula would remember a young man from Aridaia who used to travel to Florina to see her when she was studying to become a teacher, and she would secretly shed tears. He too would recall the passionate, illicit and unfulfilled loves of his own past and feel his eyes moisten. And so the days passed—quietly, sorrowfully, yet warmly—filled with tenderness, understanding and countless mutual confidences. With Chekhov, with Kafka, with Tolstoy.

Outside, life marched on relentlessly, taking account of neither people nor circumstances, while epidemiologists and medical experts constantly sounded the alarm, reminding the public that, besides the nose and mouth, the eyes too should be considered gateways through which the virus might enter the body—through human tears.

2019

(Included in my short-story collection One's Own Room, Rome Publications, 2025.)