After months of planning, the highly-anticipated Greek Writers Festival opened at the Greek Centre on Friday night.

The opening night attracted an intergenerational crowd, featuring some very well-known faces from the community.

President of the Greek Community of Melbourne (GCM), Bill Papastergiadis addressed those gathered, and expressed his pride in witnessing the event come together. He highlighted the impressive program that gives both writers from the Greek community a platform, as well as talent from other diasporic communities.

Local poet George Mouratidis who played a key role in organised the Festival also made a speech, followed by a musical performance by Nick Tsiavos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hldlijyJWkY

The highly-esteemed Professor Vrasidas Karalis from the University of Sydney kicked off the first panel discussion of the Festival, with authors Maria Katsonis and Dmetri Kakmi.

‘What is a Greek Australian writer’, is how the conversation kicked off, venturing straight off the bat into interesting territory. It didn’t take long to get rather personal however, with the discussion centred around what it has been like for the two writers to grow up with the expectations of being a ‘good’ Greek boy or girl, when all you want to do is be yourself and follow – or rather create – your own path.

Drawing from her memoir ‘The Good Greek Girl’, Katsonis, an openly gay woman, spoke of the challenges of living a life authentic to herself while faced with the expectations of her family, especially her late father, and the toll it took on her health.

Kakmi, who is also openly gay, commented on how conservative many sectors of the community continue to be.

“Speaking as a gay man, the Greek community here is held back by incredible conservatism; it is as if we have calcified in a kind of 1950s mindset,” he said.

“At the same time, I am happy to see the young people moving forward in ways that actually delight me. So the contradictions are there, but aren’t those contradictions in every culture, and every community?”

However Katsonis revealed that while she has experienced some backlash since the publication of her memoir, in which she bares all, that she was surprised by how many people within the community resonated with her story, and reached out to connect.

For Kakmi, his experience after publishing ‘Mother Land’ wasn’t as positive.

Born to Greek parents in Turkey, the author’s book gives an account of how a Greek boy born on a Turkish island tries to make sense of the escalating tension between the Greeks and Turks, which saw him branded a “traitor” in the eyes of Greeks.

“The Turkish community embraced the book, but most Greeks turned their backs on it; they saw me as traitor to the cause because I wasn’t lambasting the Turks … so it was an interesting response, and to this day, the book hasn’t been published in Greek,” Kakmi revealed.

The Greek Writers Festival is on now until 8 June. To see the full program and purchase tickets, click here.

See parts of the panel discussion below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jPNDvKdNd8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2cGAKSr0lU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vC0o0NCXJ9M