In the theatrical monologue “HYPATIA: Cartography of Memory,” Marianna Lampiri reconstructs the figure of the Alexandrian philosopher through fourteen images of memory. Hypatia’s life unfolds in an Alexandria that is gradually changing. Knowledge, philosophy, and science coexist with religious and political conflicts, as an old world comes face to face with a new one. Hypatia looks back on her life through images and memories, from childhood and her first encounter with the world of knowledge to adulthood, teaching, and the search for a path that will take her beyond the limits imposed on her by her era. An entire world unfolds through her recollections, while the sky remains ever-present above it all: a map and, at the same time, an opening onto infinity. Hypatia chooses teaching, research, and intellectual freedom. Between body and spirit, matter and idea, love and abstinence, she seeks. She becomes a teacher, engages in dialogue with the great philosophers and scientists of the past, and devotes her existence to the pursuit of understanding the order of the Universe.
Yet the darkness around her grows denser. The city is divided, knowledge is threatened, and violence invades the world that had until then been her refuge. The library, the temples, the memories of a civilization—and with them an entire way of thinking—are in danger. “HYPATIA: Cartography of Memory” is a work about knowledge, freedom, and memory. It is about a person who gazes at the stars in an effort to understand the Universe, while the world around them sinks into violence and fanaticism. It becomes the voice of a memory that refuses to be erased, and of a knowledge that endures even when books are destroyed and people are lost. A journey from earth to sky, and from personal memory to the collective memory of humanity.
On March 8, 415 CE, Hypatia is murdered by a fanatical mob in Alexandria. Her image survives as a symbol of free thought in the face of dogmatic rigidity and intellectual regression. This trilingual edition creates an exceptional publishing universe. The Greek original meets its English translation and Modern Literary Arabic, while a detailed index sheds light on the work’s scientific, philosophical, and historical references. Sixteen centuries later, Hypatia’s story remains alarmingly relevant.
Number of pages
160
Cover
Soft
Year of publication
2026
Publisher
Kapa Ekdotiki