A unique portrayal of Athens as a developing urban space claimed by an unruly femininity that refuses, for a brief moment in time, to give in to its prescribed future

Four Testimonies on the Exhumation of River Errinyos tells the story of a haunting adolescence shared by four girls in the 1980s. Growing up in the outskirts of Athens, in the ‘neighbourhood of hell’, Ioanna, Katerina, Sofia and the Greek-British Rachel dress in black, declare war on their working-class families, and listen to Joy Division. They also listen to the inspiring words of their history class teacher who seeks to unite the long-absent ancient city to the plans of urban regeneration proposed by the newly elected socialist government. One winter morning, the girls hear about the ancient rivers of Athens and are enchanted by the possibility of discovering the long burried River Errinyos – with tragic and, not least, magical consequences that will mark their lives. When a young urban anthropologist visits the survivors in the early 2000s to find out what is mythical and what is real, the perplexing legacy of the River Errinyos unfolds in the narrators’ words as the secret life of an eternally troubled city.

The novella offers a unique portrayal of Athens as a developing urban space claimed by an unruly femininity that refuses, for a brief moment in time, to give in to its prescribed future. A meditation on friendship and loss, Four Testimonies on the Exhumation of River Errinyos is also an imaginative reconstruction of the decade that continues to be perceived as a broken promise by those who lived through it.