Homero Aridjis "Smyrna in Flames"

Join me for a conversation about a novel by the poet Homero Aridjis.

It is war story in which a hero desperately moves through the city of Smyrna in search of Eurydice, the love of his life whom he left behind. Wandering the streets, the sounds of hopelessness commingle in his mind with echoes of the ancient Greek poets who sang of the city’s past glories. Images and voices, suggestive of Homeric ghosts adrift in a catastrophic scenario, conjure up a mythological, historical, geographical quest that, in the manner of classical epic, hovers between the heroic and the horrible, illustrating the depths and depravity of the human soul.

Homero Aridjis is a Mexican poet, novelist, environmental activist, journalist, and diplomat known for his rich imagination, poetry of lyrical beauty, and ethical independence. He is the recipient of a Mexican Writers’ Center Fellowship, a French government fellowship, and two Guggenheim Fellowships. He is the author of seventeen books of poetry, ten of which have been translated into English.