Kostas Kalfopoulos, an intellectual of a horizontal dimension

2023-12-04 17:24:14
printed edition

From yesterday’s event as part of the three-day crimes n’ beer organized by ELSAL and the red n’ noir book cafe at KET, a few months after the unexpected death of Kostas Kalfopoulos last July. The moderator of the debate Tevkros Michaelidis, Fanis Dalezios and Yiannis Baskozos

Police Fiction Nights

ART – NEWS 04.12.23 17:24 Lena Kyriakides

Event in memory of Kostas Kalfopoulos at the Television Control Center.

“Thanks to Kostas, I started reading detective literature. He opened up my cognitive and critical horizons, he opened up a whole world to me,” writer Ilias Kafaoglou said of Kostas Kalfopoulos at an event in his memory on Saturday night at the Television Control Center. It was the first of the Police Fiction Nights in which the absolute connoisseur of the genre did not participate. His friends, colleagues and fellow travelers in the Hellenic Club of Writers of Police Literature spoke about the writer and journalist Kalfopoulos, about the generosity of his character, about his contribution to police literature through the magazine “Polar”. For his obsessions with film noir, the city, its cafes, pinball, cars, football (and his team, Panathinaikos).

“He was an intellectual of a horizontal dimension, who was able to penetrate the intelligentsia, German, French, Greek, but also pop culture and populism”, emphasized Yannis Baskozos, journalist and director of the magazine “The Reader”. “In every one of his books you knew you were going to find something else. So also in his last “What starts out nice, dies with murder”, a variation of the song by Babis Cetini. Although one might think it’s a pastiche, it’s actually in my opinion an autobiographical book, where he goes through a lot of his teenage years, from the junta onwards […]. Something new it brings is that in three of the short stories the murderer takes responsibility and surrenders, while he can escape. A very good Athenian look that reminds me, for me, of Menis Koumandareas”, said Baskozos, noting that he very aptly conveys the shock of the transition to the Post-colonialism from the dictatorship, where there were no parties, information, freedom.

“All his books are autobiographical. Beloved, beloved, chosen. One moment we might be talking about Wittgenstein and the next about Kouda. That was Kostas. And with a humor subcutaneous and sarcastic, but never offensive. It did not annihilate the person or situation it was parodying. He was always an esthete. He had an extroversion and a secretiveness at the same time. Like Kontorevythoulis, he left traces of who he is and if someone wanted to approach him, he had to follow them and reach his inner self”, added Yiannis Ragos.

The publisher of “Polar”, Fanis Dalezios, expressed his honor and pride for the collaboration with Kalfopoulos. “Unfortunate indeed are those who did not happen to cooperate and meet him. […] He took a risk then to entrust us with the publication of the magazine. The flexibility of Kostas’ thinking about what constitutes a crime novel stepped on our own not rigid editorial attitude. It gave “Polar” the necessary plasticity to switch subjects and actors later. He shared the anxiety about which issue, when and how it would come out. Before Christmas, the 13th issue, dedicated to Kostas, will be released. We didn’t have him pressuring us, so he was a little late.”