“…characters recall how that sad event shaped their own histories, but the tone is one of hopefulness, of looking to the future and making the best of situations that will always be imperfect.”
“This sparseness extends to the stories individually, which do not waste their limited word-count on scene-setting or extraneous characterisation; each one evokes a mood, makes a point, or charts a phase in an individual’s development without telling us anything more than we need to know.“
Read the whole of what Katie Low has to say here
* Marjory McGinn on Amazon.co.uk:
“Stunning insight into the Greek experience”
“… each story is poet gem, offering … moments of revelation and introspection”
“Unique and surprising, tight and passionate language”
“Every once in a while, I get a book in the mail that is unique from anything else I’ve ever read. As a collection of short stories, Stella Pieride’s Feeding the Doves has given me a new definition of what short means, not to mention how quickly a story can be told… ”
“…references to Greece and its geography and culture, ancient and modern, pepper Pieride’s stories. It’s a wonderful setting for her flash fiction, and I found her writing a refreshing and unique collection.
“Each feels like an intimate glimpse into someone’s life, a brief moment in time. And given that each is so quick, so fast, and yet so personal, it’s saying something that Pieride is able to levy language to create this impact in such sort space.”
* Neos Kosmos Review(Australia’s leading Greek community news source) by Helen Velissaris:
“These stories manage to show universal themes entwined with the Greek psyche to give a new perspective on the Greece in the media’s headlines.
Above all, these stories show Greece isn’t defined by its current bank account, but rather the people that inhabit it.”
“From a symbol of the divine (“A Life-Changing Story), to an object of meditation and near-worship in Syntagma Square (as in the title story), to their possible end in a soup kitchen destined to feed hungry children (“Pigeons”), doves’ journey functions as a counterpoint to the human sacrifice and quest for nourishing truths. Several glimpses into silent, sometimes tortured lives, end in haiku. It serves to deepen the reader’s understanding, and add new dimensions to the prose. And it’s a treat, as Pierides is both an archeologist of experiences, and a mistress of haibun.
Since Yourcenar and Kazantzakis, nobody has illuminated with such wisdom and compassion the often unseen lives that make the humanity what it is: a traveling, travailing organism with feet of myth.”
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Mia Avramut is a Romanian-born writer, physician, researcher, and poetry editor at Connotation Press.
***
About
Having left Greece in her youth, Stella Pierides, the author of “Feeding the Doves”, returns to the country of her birth through a collection of stories that lie at the heart of Greek identity. About the Book:
Greece has been in the headlines for a very long time. Recently, the headlines have been gloomy and negative, the country facing some of its most difficult years. Against this background, “Feeding the Doves” explores recurrent elements of the Greek psyche, tracing them back to challenges posed by the country’s history, culture, and environment.
The widow, the old loner, the refugee, the immigrant, the young, the writer, the expatriate, tell us their stories, touching upon themes at the heart of Greek being: Love and loss, civil war, immigration and diaspora, emigration, poverty, religion, history and catastrophe, and above all, the will to survive.
“What I admire here are the shining moments of revelation, of truths large and small bursting through the lives and memories of these characters. So many characters, and so rich!”
—John Wentworth Chapin
Founding Editor, 52|250 and A Baker’s Dozen
“Stories to surprise and entertain, to wake and calm, to wrench and elate, to tell the Greek story, past and present, and everyone’s story.”
-—Michael Dylan Welch, poet, writer,
and editor/publisher of Press Here books
* Fruit Dove Press
Email: admin@fruitdovepress.com http://www.fruitdovepress.com
Perfect softbound
87 pages, 90gm cream interior paper
Full-color laminated cover
129 mm x 198 mm trim size
“Unique and surprising, tight and passionate language”
“Every once in a while, I get a book in the mail that is unique from anything else I’ve ever read. As a collection of short stories, Stella Pieride’s Feeding the Doves has given me a new definition of what short means, not to mention how quickly a story can be told… ”
“… I found her writing a refreshing and unique collection.”
Feeding the Doves
31 Short and Very Short Stories, and Haibun
Greece has been in the headlines for a very long time. Since ancient times, her philosophers, historians, mathematicians, shipbuilders, traders, and artisans have been making the news – and, indeed, history. So, amidst the country’s most difficult years in recent times, many people believe that they know Greece and the Greeks.
.
Against this backdrop, the stories – short and very short – collected in “Feeding the Doves” explore recurrent elements of the Greek psyche, tracing them back to challenges posed by the country’s history and environment. The widow, the old loner, the refugee, the immigrant, the writer, the expatriate tell us their stories, touching upon themes at the heart of Greek being, as well as our common humanity: love and l loss, war, civil war, immigration and diaspora, emigration, poverty, religion, history, and above all, the will to survive.
Fruit Dove Press
Email: admin@fruitdovepress.com
.
[The title story “Feeding the Doves” and the cover image were inspired by a photo taken by Robert Geiss, titled “Feeding Doves” and posted on his (sadly, no longer active) blog “Daily Athens Photo.”]
2
winter reeds
a dove becomes
my friend
.
NaHaiWriMo prompt: peace
Interesting to be reminded today that doves and pigeons,
together with the olive branch have been used as
symbols for peace, love, lust as well as the human and Holy spirit since
antiquity, and featured widely in ancient Greek
mythology, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism and other religions
and cultures.
.
On another note, haiku #1 is a two-liner. I did try to twist it
into the more usual three- and one- line shapes, but
it wouldn’t listen to me.
1
autumn market stall
the refugee’s child feeds
the doves
2
child feeding the doves –
on the statue of Ares
vulture’s nest
.
NaHaiWriMo prompt: socially engaged haiku
The social issue: the alarming xenophobia rising/social disintegration taking place in Greece
at present: see BBC report here
I am very pleased to report that two of my haibun set in Athens, Greece, have been published by Contemporary Haibun Online: Feeding the Doves, a story inspired by a photograph on Robert Geiss’ wonderful blog “daily Athens photo”; and “The Haircut”, exploring the hardships Greek people are facing in the current economic crisis.
The actual photograph of the man feeding the doves that inspired this story can be seen here. In fact, visiting the site to look for the link, I realise that a version I’d sent Robert thanking him for the photograph, had been posted on his blog! So, let us keep feeding the doves!
Literature, Art, Culture, Society, and lots of Haiku
Stella Pierides 
