Bill Kokkaris - Paradisos
About
6pm for 6:30pm Friday 8 MayOn the imaginary Aegean island of Phaedros, paradise is both inheritance and illusion.
In 2015, as Greece buckles under economic collapse and a mounting refugee crisis, Greek-Australian resort owner Emilio Politis believes he has secured his future. But when a freak storm capsizes a migrant boat, Emilio’s rescue of a young Syrian mother fractures the fragile order of his life, exposing deep rifts within his family and community.
As fear, superstition and a shocking murder grip the island, ancient myths collide with modern anxieties: rumours of witchcraft, forbidden love and religious intolerance. Emilio’s growing obsession with the refugee woman forces him to confront his own capacity for love, migration and the cost of belonging to the island that both sustains and condemns him.
Set against sacred ruins and contested shores, Paradisos is a haunting literary novel of displacement, desire and moral reckoning—and the uneasy truth that paradise must be earned, not inherited.
Bill Kokkaris is a Greek-Australian visual artist and playwright. His plays Baraki, Night Journeys, and A Lifetime of Summers were produced by Take Away Theatre. Bill has also written one-act plays for Carnivale and Sidetrack Theatre. In addition to his creative work, Bill has held roles across several New South Wales government agencies as an editor, communications manager and corruption prevention practitioner. He has a longstanding interest in immigration studies and has collaborated professionally and creatively with migrant communities throughout his career. In 2020, Bill received an Invited Residency at Varuna, The National Writers’ House in Katoomba, where he completed the first draft of his novel Paradisos. In 2023, Paradisos was a finalist in the Eyelands Book Awards (Unpublished Novel category). When not writing, Bill paints and draws from his studio in the Blue Mountains
Will Kostakis is one of Australia’s most renowned authors for kids and young adults. First published at nineteen, he writes whip-smart comedies that break (then mend) hearts. We Could Be Something is his latest novel. It’s a moving family epic that won the 2024 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Young Adult Literature.
Date
6pm for 6.30pm Friday 8 MayLocation
Upstairs at Gleebooks
49 Glebe Point Road, Glebe NSW 2037
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Bill Kokkaris - Paradisos
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