A community Q&A with Greek Australian author Olympia Panayiotopoulos was held at Lalor Library, to celebrate Cultural Diversity Week.
The event was organised in collaboration with the Whittlesea Multicultural Community Council and hosted by Kris Pavlidis, President of the Greek Orthodox Community of Whittlesea, focused on Panayiotopoulos’s novel Beneath the Fig Leaves.
“We travelled with Olympia, as a daughter of Greek immigrants whose struggles to reconcile between her two cultures, resonate deeply for many of us,” Pavlidis told Neos Kosmos.
Pavlidis noted that Panayiotopoulos’s “special connection with her precious mother is sensitively and eloquently described” in the novel.
“We are drawn into their ongoing dialogue about the village, kindness in people, and their lives in Australia, all within the privacy of the enchanted family garden.”
Pavlidis said the novel “beautifully captures” this year’s Cultural Diversity Week theme, ‘Embrace the Journey, Shape Our Future’.
“We are reminded of the importance of documenting family history, sharing and connecting our culture, the symbolic beauty of the fruits of the family garden and the deeply rooted value of family.”
