This fascinating collection of short stories from Greek author Konstantina Sozou-Kyrkou deals with the darker side of life in Greece. Full of domestic violence, male domination, superstition and ignorance, the strong influence of religion and suffocating traditions, Black Greek Coffee portrays life in rural 20th century Greece like no other book.
“My inspiration was my native village in mountainous Western Greece,” explains Konstantina, “and I focus mainly on events that I witnessed myself or incidents narrated to me by relatives and friends.” The author sought to expose the injustice and misunderstanding of life there, exerting her own social criticism through writing. “I wanted to expose readers to these unfair, oppressive circumstances, where people’s prejudices and corrupt morals prevail and destroy people’s lives.”
Black Greek Coffee touches on themes of self-righteousness, religion, migration, chauvinism, illness, loss, death, war, superstition, honour and gender issues. They are literary stories of the domestic, occasionally reaching into the supernatural, that surprise, educate and challenge the reader’s intellect.
“I deal mostly with submerged population groups like women, children, the poor and the uneducated; people who cannot always defend themselves, stand up to their rights. People who feel lonely in their subordinate positions. It is these people’s voices that I felt I had to bring to the fore, to make their problems heard,” says Konstantina.