Dendrites - Paperback

by Kallia Papadaki (Author), Karen Emmerich (Translator)

World Literature Today's Notable Translation of 2024

Winner of the 2017 European Union Prize for Literature for readers of Min Jin Lee and The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

When young Minnie is orphaned, the Campanis family decides to take her in. Ex-hippie Susan and her husband Basil, a second-generation Greek American, along with their daughter Leto react to Minnie's arrival in ways that make old family scars flare up again. Set in crisis-ridden 1980s Camden, New Jersey, among a community of immigrants trying and failing to realize the American dream, Dendrites is a poetical elegy to dignity and courage. In this sensitively told story about the quest for a meaningful life amid the ruins of lost second chances, Kallia Papadaki, one of Greek literature's most brilliant voices, delivers an unforgettable novel about the power of hope and compassion in the face of adversity.

Author Biography

KALLIA PAPADAKI was born in Didymoteicho, Greece, and grew up in Thessaloniki. She works as a professional screenwriter. Her critically acclaimed short-story collection Ο ήχος του ακάλυπτου "The Back-Lot Sound" won the Diavazo Journal New Writers Award. September, her first feature-length script, won the 2010 International Balkan Fund Script Development Award, received the Nipkow Scholarship in Berlin, and premiered at the 48th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Dendrites, her first novel, was awarded the EU Prize for Literature, shortlisted for the Anagnostis Best Novel Award, and won the Clepsidra Best Young Author Prize.

KAREN EMMERICH is a translator of modern Greek literature and an Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University. Her translation awards include the National Translation Award for Ersi Sotiropoulos's What's Left of the Night, the Best Translated Book Award for Eleni Vakalo's Beyond Lyricism, and the PEN Poetry in Translation Award for Yannis Ritsos's Diaries of Exile (co-translated with Edmund Keeley). She lives in Brooklyn.