ADULT BOOK CLUB – Members’ Meeting, Sunday, April 5, 2026

On Sunday, April 5, 2026, the members of the VITSENTZOS KORNAROS Shelter’s Reading Club met and discussed “The Bookseller of Gaza” by Rachid Benzine, Psychogios Publications. An elderly bookseller, in a war-torn country, chooses words as his refuge, resistance, and homeland. He describes his Palestinian odyssey, the psychological fluctuations he experiences through the harsh trials of survival, and the role of books, which, as the protagonist says, “reality is the same, nothing overturns oppression, but the spirit flies far away, it soars.”
The book, written in a subtle way, without malice, moved and initiated readers into the atmosphere of war, becoming an occasion for discussions and references to current events, which—unfortunately—carry the same wounds.
In closing, the speech delivered by Amos Oz at the J Street conference in 2012 was read, which is considered one of the most emblematic, as it encapsulates a lifetime’s philosophy on the Palestinian issue.
At the upcoming meeting (May 24), the Club will have the pleasure of hosting Angela Kastrinaki, Professor of Modern Greek Philology at the Department of Philology of the University of Crete and an author, who will refer to Papadiamantis and, more specifically, to the erotic, unrequited Papadiamantis as revealed through his work.