Duration : 30 min

Dimitris Dimitriadis, renowned author of among others, the 1978 novel I am dying like a country (Je meurs comme un pays), which has been presented as a theatre play most recently in Paris at the Odeon Theatre (Festival d’Automne à Paris, edition 2012, under the direction of M. Marmarinos), will speak on a new understanding of the Platonic cave, in context of the current world crisis and its deeper roots and causes. Dimitriadis, has written extensively on identity, the need to continually question our limits, preserve the enigmas, and keep alive the interrogation, the enquête.

“ It is a very serious problem: Greece, which is by nature the most historical of countries, has become stuck in the mechanism of history. That is the reason for the current impasse: everything that we are talking about, this great Greek heritage to which we lay claim, has been petrified in the form of clichés and stereotypes. This is nothing new: for some time now, Greece has been living in the light of a dead star. What I felt 35 years ago is even more pronounced today: the “crisis” will not be resolved without a genuine raising of historical awareness, which implies a recognition that something has died, so that a new birth can take place. As the poet T.S. Eliot put it, “In my end is my beggining” – but you have to say when the end happens.”

[Dimitris Dimitradis in an interview with Fabienne Darge, Le Monde, 17.12.2012]