Totally Lit: Late Hybrids
Dates
Monday 29 September | 2.30pm - 3.30pm
General Admission | $10 + booking fee
Concession | $7 + booking fee
Ages
Adults
Duration
60 mins
Site access information
WA Maritime Museum is mostly accessible, excluding tours aboard the HMAS Ovens. Call 1300 134 081 for assistance. More about accessibility and amenities >
Join a conversation with Nikos Athanasou and other authors about cultural differences between Greeks and Australians.
Nikos Athanasou‘s stories speak to all those who feel caught between two cultures. His characters are the second and third generations of Greek Australians who, having a strong sense of their Greek identity and traditions, are not always at ease in the modern Australian world.
Nikos, in conversation with fellow author Pol Koutsakis, will discuss not just cultural differences between Greeks and Australians but also the distinctive psyche of Greek Australians when they encounter issues of life, love, death and duty to one’s past.
"A rich gallery of characters, so nice and normal, at least they seem to be, but they are emotional icebergs. What we see on the surface is nothing compared to what’s going on below."
- Lex Marinos
About the artists
Pol Koutsakis was born in Chania, Crete, Greece and has been living in Perth since 2016. He has won the National Book Award for Young Adult Literature in Greece, in 2016, as well as the IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People) – Greek Section award in 2023. He has also won twice the National Award for Playwriting in Greece. Pol’s plays have also been staged and won awards in the USA and UK and have been published in Canada. Athenian Blues and Baby Blue are the first two novels in the Stratos Gazis crime series, published by Bitter Lemon Press in the UK, USA and Australia and by Patakis Publications in Greece and recently optioned for a TV series in Greece. He is an Associate Professor at the School of IT, Murdoch University and serves as Associate Dean of External Engagement for the School. He holds a patent on energy saving for wireless networks which has been acquired by Blackberry Limited. He is also the Principal of a Saturday school, the Greek Language and Culture Institute of Evangelismos. For his work at the school he was a finalist for the 2024 Principal’s Award by the Modern Language Teachers’ Association of Western Australia.
Nikos (Nick) Athanasou is a short story writer, novelist, musculoskeletal pathologist and research scientist. He was born in Perth and grew up in Sydney. Both his parents emigrated from the Greek island of Castellorizo. He studied at Sydney High School, Sydney University, St Bartholomew’s Hospital, and Oxford University where he is Professor of Musculoskeletal Pathology and an Emeritus Fellow at Wadham College. He works as a diagnostic pathologist and carries out research into diseases of bone, joint and soft tissues. He has written two collections of short stories, Hybrids and Late Hybrids and three novels, The Greek Liar, The Person of the Man, and Palindrome (all published by Brandl & Schlesinger). He has also written numerous medical/scientific papers and medical books.
Presented in association with the WA Maritime Museum
