Z, 50th Anniversary Edition

Vassilis Vassilikos

feb 2017 · Seven Stories Press

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A progressive parliamentary deputy is scheduled to appear at a political rally. Meanwhile, local political bosses plot his assassination. Thugs are recruited to disrupt the rally. Rumors begin to spread. But the forces already set in motion are irresistible. Z is the story of a crime, a time, a place, and people transformed by events.

Z was published in Greece in 1966, and banned there one year later. It is based on an actual political assassination in 1963 in Salonika. The victim was Gregory Lambrakis, a socialist legislator and outspoken critic of the government. But Lambrakis's killers could not have anticipated the public response. His funeral became a political event; by the time the cortege reached Athens, 400,000 people were following the coffin in silence. In the nation's capital, the letter Z suddenly appeared on walls, sidewalks, posters--everywhere. Z stands for the Greek verb zei, "he lives."

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Born in 1933 in Kavalla in Northern Greece, VASSILIS VASSILIKOS grew up mostly in Salonika. After the military coup in 1967, he spent seven years in exile, returning to Greece in 1974. Author of some 120 books, translated into more than 20 foreign languages, Vassilikos is Greece's formost living novelist. His novel Z was adapted for film by Costa Gavras, winning the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1969.