“I am not faced with virtual-reality situations, but I feel like I’m in the middle of a storm that I cannot handle, in an enormous casino, where the remaining regulars bet their last chips on my elimination.” That’s what Prokopis would say, the most experienced redactor of the “World in a Trance” newspaper, probably sensing the red line he was crossing.

Sometimes, it is not enough to love and be loved with all your might. What matters is the invisible power that holds the sandglass and shakes it imperatively against you, to rapidly drain it to the very last grain. And, of course, that is not fair God.

A fictional story about a mistake from the very start…”

A Mistake from the Very Start is the seventh and latest novel by Giannis Ziotis, an accomplished Greek writer who has achieved international recognition. Now available in English published by iWrite Publications, the book challenges us to face our own ‘mistake from the very start’ and to examine the hourglass of time in which grains of sand have already fallen.

Born in Andros in 1976, Giannis Ziotis has become one of the most respected Greek writers of his generation. His work is informed by his studies of journalism, as well as everyday life in contemporary Greece – a world that he lives and breathes. A profound influence on his life and work was his friend and mentor Antonis Samarakis (1919-2003) a Greek writer of the post-war period who explored themes related to humanism, alienation and totalitarianism.

“It is a great honor to count as a friend a person such as this who seeks the collective and not the personal good,” the Cypriot ambassador to Greece, Kyriakos Kenevezos said during a presentation of the book last year when it was first released in Greek.

“The battle people wage with events, like those they have faced in recent years. Their fight to survive, to succeed. That is what is highlighted in the work of Giannis Ziotis, a person with integrity, honesty, with clean hands, as those hands must be to be hurt by hardships,” the ambassador continued.

At the same event the journalist Pavlos Alepis said that Ziotis’ writing “comes from very far away. A Greek form of writing that exudes respect for all of the periods and concerns of the past, and is equal in its thoughtfulness and moderation as that of grandfather Aristotle, our distant grandfather.”

A Mistake from the Very Start is available in English as an ebook on Amazon the iTunes Store and at iWrite.gr. In Greek it can be found in print at all major bookstores in Greece. You can also follow the author via his Facebook page.