The Murderess, Alexandros Papadiamantis (Greece)

Ann Morgan’s TED Talk, ‘My year reading a book from every country in the world’, inspired me. My friend and I decided to undertake a similar project- reading a book from every country in the world- but without setting a time limit on it like Morgan did. We decided to start in Greece, with a Greek tragedy called ‘The Murderess’ by Alexandros Papadiamantis.

I have read one Greek tragedy before, except this was a play. It was the famous ‘Medea’ by Euripides, and I noticed that many of the same themes ran between Euripides’ work and Papadiamantis’. The most poignant of these parallels would be the protagonist and central plot revolving around a woman in insanity, committing murder and crime. Whilst Medea and the protagonist of this prose, Hadoula, are similar in this sense, their motives are very much different. Where Medea murdered her children to cause ultimate pain to her prior husband Jason, Hadoula murdered many unrelated children to save their parents and the world of the pain that a female may cause.

It is apparent therefore, that the time period being spoken of is one before the waves of feminism. The Murderess is centred around a patriarchal society- one in which dowries still played a large role. Having said this, I was shocked upon research to find that these dowries still exist in Greece even today! Although it was cancelled legally in the 80’s, it remains a Greek tradition. This is where a bride, or the bride’s family, delivers property or money to her husband upon marriage. This is what seemed to fuel the majority of Hadoula’s rage in The Murderess. Having a female baby was both a disappointment and a stress on a family, for in the future they would then need to pay the dowry for her marriage. Hadoula was tired of being a slave, as Papadiamantis claimed, to her husband, her children, and then her children’s children too. It was this realisation that led to her first murder; the strangulation of her ill baby granddaughter.

Hadoula did experience guilt, it seemed, following the initial murder. She felt a responsibility to tell her family of her sin (although she never did) and begged forgiveness from God. This, however, begun to act as a justification of her sins. Religion perhaps became a method for the protagonist to justify the avoidance of retribution. Each time she committed murder, she would claim she was aiding the family of the girl by taking her from them, and then would almost counteract the sin by supporting the family through their grievances.

Something I found most interesting about The Murderess was the escalation of Hadoula’s crime. Later in the novella, the reader discovers that many years ago, Hadoula helped a woman abort her baby. Therefore, even before the peak of her crimes, she was aiding the end of a female life. Her actions then escalate to the murder of her baby granddaughter- who has actually entered the world this time- which almost acts as the stepping stone to her future, more frequent and brutal, murders. Even when running from the police, Hadoula continues her crimes- often dancing around their nearby presence- which emphasises her level of insanity and belief in what she was doing. Even the prospect of being caught was not enough to deter her.

The novella is particularly short, yet I feel if it was any longer would lose its touch. I think the shortness of the book reflects the impulsive nature of Hadoula after her early realisation, and the ever-quickening pace of the chapters mirroring this descent. Whilst I found it initially slow, and details being too much retold and emphasised, it became much more gripping with patience.

And that concludes the first country ticked off of my list: The Murderess by Alexandros Papadiamantis: dark, shocking, and as the genre suggests; tragic.

Stacey Dooley on the frontline with women who fight back

I’ve loved Stacey Dooley and her authentic journalistic style for some time now, so how the fact that she wrote a book slipped me by I don’t know. I’m not sure what has drawn me to her all these years- but the closest I can get to an answer is that she’s real. I’m not saying other journalists aren’t, but she doesn’t appear to try and put on a presenter voice or adapt to the traditional style like others do. And the results of this? People listen.

I tried to read her book whilst watching the corresponding documentary with each chapter, and the effect of this was remarkable. Whilst watching the documentaries hit me with the hard-core facts and chilling realities, reading the book gave more of a personal insight: how Stacey felt, her beliefs and opinions, and how the gigs would change these. And my favourite bit about this was that she was honest: she openly said that perhaps she placed negative connotations on the likes of prostitutes and drug dealers to begin with, but that gaining an insight into their lifestyles changed this. Something I think a lot of us can relate to.

The hardest and most shocking parts to read were certainly the final two chapters (best until last, right?) which discuss her time on the frontline in Iraq, learning about the lives of the Yazidi women. Reading about this filled me with anger: and not just because these women were being kidnapped, raped and killed unjustly by Isis. This of course is awful, but I am also angry at us as a nation for not doing more. I know we can’t instantly put an end to things like this, but there’s not even any awareness of it! Have you ever heard of the Yazidi women? Probably not. This is what needs work.

I respect Stacey Dooley so much more than I already did after reading about her time in Iraq. A sceptical part of me always wonders, when celebrities do good, whether their motives are to truly make change or to gain the spotlight. But to put yourself in a literal war zone- risking your life to raise awareness of others’ hardship- simply cannot be down to selfish motives. Not to mention, when you watch a documentary it is easy to focus on the events being discussed and not realise that the presenter and crew are actually there. They must be terrified, yet they believe in the cause enough to go out there and do it.

A few times throughout the book, Stacey talks about some things that utterly changed my perspective. She talks about how lucky she is to be born and living in England, which means that merely through luck of the draw she doesn’t have to endure such trauma. People who are born by chance in a bad place and cannot escape bad things are no less of a person than us. So why do we act like they are? I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this since. As well as this, she often mentions how scared she felt in a place- like Mexico or Iraq- and how she was so relieved to come back home each time. And then, she always follows this by saying she is lucky that she only spends about two weeks there, whereas the people she leaves behind are there for good. I cannot even begin to imagine this. And yet, I’m sure the Yazidi women of Iraq or the refugees fleeing Mexico feel exactly the same way about us. It makes our luxury seem unjust.

Forever I have been saying that I would love to be like Stacey Dooley- to go out there and do good. Yet I have taken no step toward it and I am not sure I would have it in me either. Not in the way she does, anyway. You need to have guts for this lifestyle, you need to have fire, and you need to completely and utterly believe in what you are doing. Reading this book has reiterated it for me: we need more Stacey Dooley’s in this World.

Raising awareness about these global events certainly is the first step to making change; and now it’s down to us.