Dendrites

"What possibilities do individuals really have when they find themselves in devastating conditions? This question, of Kafkaesque extraction, unites the lives of the characters who inhabit this extraordinary novel. Marginality is not a choice, but a circumstance and a fatality, and Kallia Papadaki explores these margins in the lives of Greek emigrants with profound insight and empathy. The result is a wise and sensitive novel, but not only that, because Kallia is a virtuoso in the art of storytelling, which is increasingly a rarity these days. The result is a cohesive novel, with highly elaborate literary language and a perfect narrative structure. And whose characters shake us to the core."--RONALDO MEN?NDEZ

"The winner of the 2017 European Union Prize for Literature vindicates the multiplicity of female voices in European literature, who are often silenced by a lack of translation into other EU languages." --Vogue

"A novel about disillusion and everyday failures." --ELLE

"A wonderful debut. Don't let it pass you by."--Qu? Leer

"In living organisms, the word dendrites refers to the branches of nerve cells. Here, the reference is to branching. Kind of like the novel were a tree of which the twenty chapters were the branches, tirelessly described, with the precision of a sociologist, by a novelist who is as much a scenarist and who thinks in terms of cinematographic images."--Le Soir

"With great ease, the novel combines narration with the characters' inner monologues, thanks to Papadaki's peculiar, poetic, and flexible style, which hardly uses any punctuation beyond commas. Dendrites is an ambitious, courageous, and sincere work of literature, as well as a social document of European migration to the USA." --Todo Literatura

"One of the best Greek novels of the last few years. Truly exceptional."--Lifo Magazine

"A deeply poetic book of great beauty, which will leave an indelible mark."--Books Journal

"The book's two female characters belong next to the totemic personas of Greek literature."--Amagi

"Sad as the blues, existential, profoundly political, contemporary and timely ... Simply extraordinary. Had it been written in English it would have caused a stir."--Le Monde diplomatique

"Dendrites might be the best Greek novel of the summer."--Propaganda

"In this magnificent and evocative novel, Kallia Papadaki reconstructs with great poetic prowess the story of a Greek family who emigrate to North America." --ABC Cultural

"The female characters, in all the different eras of the story, are fiercely determined."--Aullido

"Dendrites is an existentialist generational chronicle, of surprising psychological clarity, despite its fragmentary structure."--Indienauta

One of our three recommended translated novels for the 2020 festive season."--Llanuras

"For the daring with which Papadaki launches us into this story of genesis and exodus from person to person, from era to era, from decision to decision, and for her insistence that all things--losses, and especially successes--are impermanent, we can only recommend her novel, Dendrites.--Culturamas

"In a prose that avoids punctuation and aspires to flow like a litany, Kallia Papadaki wants to show that this history is, like all histories, on the verge of disappearance, and is, like all histories, beautiful and complex in an irreproducible way."--El correo

"Kallia Papadaki understands her job: she keeps up a virtuoso narrative geometry."--MSUR

"If there is something that unites us, in addition to nationalities, eras, and circumstances, it is our capacity to keep moving forward despite all the dreams we witness being shattered one by one."--El Confidencial

"Papadaki has written a fascinating book."--Book Press

"Papadaki handles her material skillfully, building it solidly with cinematic mastery."--Fractal

"Dendrites captures no less than sixty years of family history, spanning three generations: father, son, stepdaughter. The implacable hand of destiny consumes it all, eliminating the individuality of every life like that of the ice crystals, those dendrites of a unique and irreproducible beauty that melt without a trace. A splendid novel."--Boulevard Literario

"The striking circular structure of the novel whisks us off into the dramatic history of the Greek emigrants (and it could be about any nationality, really), of their attempts to get ahead in the United States, and their struggle to get a whiff of the 'American dream.' The story, stretching from the early twentieth century to the eighties, is personified in the figure of Andonis Cambanis and his son Vasilis. An elegy to resilience."--La Rossa Bookshop

"Kallia Papadaki did not write a novel about a crisis. She wrote a novel about the human condition after the crisis. She wrote a novel about the stuff human resilience is made of."--Efsyn

"Kallia Papadaki's language is stormy. Her breathless prose follows the dizzying speed of change in the story, the American city, and history. The novel is a joy to read, and this is how it ensnares you, so that you may slowly appreciate the breadth of the language, the narrative technique, and the complete record of the continuity of history, both personal and collective."--Kathimerini

"A hymn to resilience."--Heraldo de Arag?n

"Kallia Papadaki understands her craft: she maintains a masterful narrative geometry."--M'Sur