{"id":145,"date":"2025-11-10T11:06:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T09:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.katerinamalakate.com\/?p=145"},"modified":"2025-11-10T11:06:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T09:06:08","slug":"then-came-joseph-fotini-tsalikoglou","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.katerinamalakate.com\/?p=145","title":{"rendered":"Then came Joseph, Fotini Tsalikoglou"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>book review by Katerina Malakate<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.katerinamalakate.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20251110_100851-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-146\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.katerinamalakate.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20251110_100851-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.katerinamalakate.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20251110_100851-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/www.katerinamalakate.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20251110_100851-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/www.katerinamalakate.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20251110_100851-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.katerinamalakate.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20251110_100851-scaled.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Joseph is Evil. He was born in the place of another baby, and from the very beginning, he tore his mother apart. He was cruel, a tormentor to his mother and sister, especially to his mother, who adored him no matter what he was. The father, sometimes absent, sometimes just standing and watching; he, the bearer of collective Evil. Joseph is the embodiment of evil itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The story is narrated by the sister, Thalia, who watches her mother suffer every day and ultimately die a double death, while her father tells endless stories from the past, loading them onto her, piling them up on her shoulders. A father both hero and traitor. His mother killed herself; she too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The book explores a deep and unspeakable trauma: that of mental illness, of the murderer. The author handles it delicately, avoiding the insertion of her psychotherapist alter ego into the text, except at the very last moment. There are no answers. Perhaps the only answer lies in human nature itself, in the way our relationships are shaped: a balance of terror on a balcony ledge or among the branches of a tree. Life and death don\u2019t matter. Not even survival itself. There is only one concern, to save the child, for it not to be evil, not to be perpetrator, not to be victim, not to torture, not to be tortured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The short novel begins with an unborn child and ends with an unborn child. The circumstances differ, yet the same command remains, protection and love, against an unbearable inheritance. It closes with another, foreign child, yet still ours, hugging its teddy bear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At first, I followed the plot with mild interest; I thought I\u2019d read it all before in <em>We Need to Talk About Kevin<\/em>. But then the narration reached its crescendo, it demanded my full attention, and I longed for redemption. Redemption never came. Only everyday life, plain and unspoken, whispering each day how much you have failed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They say time dulls passions. Even when it involves so many deaths? It had been a long time since I last read a book by Fotini Tsalikoglou. was it my reader\u2019s block these past few years, or the surrounding sense that Greek literature lacks depth? Whatever it was, the fault was mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Katerina Malakate<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The book was published in Greek &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.booktalks.gr\/neoelliniki-logotexnia\/neoelliniki-pezografia\/o-iosif-irthe-meta.html\">\u039f \u0399\u03c9\u03c3\u03ae\u03c6 \u03ae\u03c1\u03b8\u03b5 \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03ac&#8221; By Kastaniotis editions <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>book review by Katerina Malakate Joseph is Evil. He was born in the place of another baby, and from the very beginning, he tore his mother apart. He was cruel, a tormentor to his mother and sister, especially to his mother, who adored him no matter what he was. The father, sometimes absent, sometimes just [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"narrow-width-container","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"enabled","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[8,10,9],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-book-review","tag-fotini-_tsalikoglou","tag-greek"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Then came Joseph, Fotini Tsalikoglou - Katerina Malakate<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.katerinamalakate.com\/?p=145\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Then came Joseph, Fotini Tsalikoglou - Katerina Malakate\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"book review by Katerina Malakate Joseph is Evil. 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