FROM THE SCHOOL YEARS of the 1980s to the civil war in Bosnia in the 90s and the Athens of the early 2000s, Thodoros explores the family trauma: the loud absence of his father, the transformation of his older brother Nikos into Nikiforos, the silent mourning of his mother. And all this in an environment where questions are never asked and answers are never given.

A novella about the difficult coming-of-age of two brothers and the unbreakable bonds of blood against the backdrop of the echo of a war that refuses to fade.

“My mother is waiting for me with her hand shielding her eyes. [...] She, as usual, has a lit cigarette in her mouth; from time to time, she shakes the ash into the ashtray. The strong light accentuates the lines around her pursed mouth. I pull a pack of cigarettes from my jacket pocket and ask her for a lighter.

“Do you smoke? Since when?” she asks as I light up.

I shrug my shoulders and blow out the smoke.

“Every visit is a surprise?” she asks.

“Maybe.”

We stay there for a while. Silent, smoking.

The sun is beginning to set now. Her shadow – and mine – as the day fades, stretches over the stones of the yard, which have been waiting for years for someone to whitewash them.”