Nebraska News Desk

Santorini (A Novel): A twenty-three-year-old poet arrives on the Greek island of Santorini pondering suicide as an antidote to the senselessness of life, an affliction of youth.  The unscripted events of his six days offer a description of the island – identified by some as the lost continent of Atlantis. This organic novel provides an odyssey through women, wine, love, despair, and philosophical conversations that engage the protagonist.  As one reviewer described it, it is a novel about everything.

In a world isolated by pandemics and global conflicts, readers are provided with an opportunity to realistically experience life as international travelers do on a Santorini, a volcanic island located on the southern side of the Aegean Sea in Greece.  To solidify his thoughts, the poet reflects on his unscripted daily encounters, his talks with local philosophers and directionless travelers, and his sexual encounters with various young women.

His stay on the volcanic island, considered by some to be the source of the Lost Continent of Atlantis, could be the defining moment if he will commit suicide or not. Santorini is one of the Cycladic islands in the Aegean Sea that was ravaged by a volcanic eruption in the 16th century BC. This phenomenon shaped its rugged landscape for life.

An American novelist, screenwriter, and poet, the author was born on Guam, a U.S. territory in Micronesia, in the Western Pacific. He has lived in Greece, Pakistan, and Iran and attended American, Catholic, and Georgetown Universities in Washington D. C.  Along with three novels, this political and economics editor has published a book of poetry entitled Sleep (Fifteen Poems) and The Legend of King Minos, a children’s book on Greek mythology. All of Katsirubas’ works can be found on his website: PWKBooks.com

Paris and Helen of Troy:

Paris and Helen of Troy is a historical/literary novel that explores the passions and motivations of the protagonists and the events of the Trojan War without the machinations of imaginary gods driving their behaviors and actions. Who were the lovers whose coupling ignited the clash of civilizations immortalized by Homer’s Iliad? What was their reality and that of the warriors and the women engulfed by the bloody conflict? According to myth, the war was precipitated by the goddess Aphrodite who promised Paris the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen the queen of Sparta, if he declared her winner of a beauty contest of goddesses. That fantasy did not occur nor were the actors’ puppets of invisible deities.

So, who sent Prince Paris across the ship-devouring Aegean Sea to Sparta and why? Did he abduct and rape Helen while King Menelaus was away, or did she voluntarily abscond with Paris to Troy? Did King Agamemnon of Mycenae lead an armada of unified Greeks to liberate his sister-in-law out of filial concern or for the ulterior reasons his wife Clytemnestra suspected?

Why did the war that saw the lethal combats of heroes such as Achilles and Ajax and Odysseus and Hector drag on for ten years when Priam the king of Troy could have ended it by returning Helen? What roles did the Trojan women such as Hecuba and Andromache and Briseis and the self-proclaimed prophetess Cassandra play during the unending siege? What is the truth behind the conflagration of Troy?

This controversial account of the seduction and abduction of Spartan Queen Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, and the epic ten-year war to liberate her encompasses Mycenae and Crete and other regions.  This true story of the Trojan War gleaned from both Homer and archaeological evidence realistically portrays the people swept up in it.  This “cinematic” novel relates the complex motivations behind the lovers, kings, and warriors who gained immortality for their heroic battles in this first historic clash between East and West.  The author has also written a children’s mythology book on ancient Crete, The Legend of King Minos and  all of his works are available as Kindle e-books.

The Idle Pursuit of Pleasure:

Set in 1920’s Paris, when the post-WWI city was the center of the universe for painters and writers and pleasure seekers, a rebellious artist witnesses the crime-of-passion slaying of a woman by her female lover.  He becomes intimately involved with the murderess and overcome by his obsession to put her on canvas even as matters are complicated by the police and other matters.  The story of this novel came to the author in a dream and so the characters and erotic encounters may seem a bit extreme but he eschewed conforming the tale to style.

High-quality paperbacks and e-books of these novels and other works by the author are available on PWKBooks.com Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Book Depository. Santorini was reissued by Author House on January 6, 2022. and contains poetry unavailable in the Amazon edition.

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