Italian Narrative
Who was Sappho?
What did she represent for the community of women to which she belonged? Her image fades into the waves, submerged by what has been said about her over the centuries in an attempt to fill the gaps in tradition, and yet she transforms the landscape of Greece’s third-largest island. It is a heart-rending paradox, the character of Lesbos, where utopia and dystopia coexist on opposite shores; to the west, in the communities of women on pilgrimage, the myth of Sappho lives on; to the east, with the thousands of shipwrecks during the crossings, the myth of Europe dies.
A journey guided by the powerful verses of the poet who was the first to describe the vertigo of a self-aware ‘I’ standing before the abyss of Eros, but also by writers – both men and women – who have truly followed in her footsteps, such as the Nobel laureate Odysseas Elytis, or Renée Vivien – known as the ‘20th-century Sappho’ – and her partner Natalie Clifford Barney.
On the shores of a dreamland, the fisherman Ghiorgos and the trans woman Dimostra meet; they take part in Sappho’s Academy and, enchanted by Orpheus’s song, the dismembered body of the myth is reassembled.
Synopsis Source: Giulioperroneditor.com
Publication date: 24 April 2026
Elisabetta Garieri (Verona, 1988) is an essayist, a scholar of Greek, and an award-winning literary translator from French and Modern Greek. A graduate in Classical Literature and currently based in Athens, she brings her debut book *To Lesbos with Sappho: Myth, Splendour and Vertigo* (Giulio Perrone Editore, 2026) to the festival. The work, which lies somewhere between a sentimental guide and an essay, retraces the footsteps and legacy of the immortal poet of eros, offering a multifaceted portrait of the island of Lesbos. By exploring the Sapphic myth in a contemporary context, Garieri weaves together history, poetry and queer imagery, providing a valuable reinterpretation of an archetypal figure of love between women.
