Each encounter and conversation with Chian writer Giannis Makridakis can expand your horizons. He is the kind of person to generously and effortlessly offer you plenty of food for thought, thus allowing you to discover new ways of thinking and alternative courses of action.

For us, the opportunity to meet him at his house in Volissos was a privilege and a source of joy. Lemon, tangerine, olive, pomegranate, and pear trees are the true protagonists of this place that radiates freedom, creativity, and harmony. Little chickens were wandering free among the trees and cleaning themselves by rolling in the dirt that feeds them. Their clucking echoed in our ears, bringing forth childhood memories.

What other sort of melody could have sounded more familiar than that of mother nature? It sounded like a calling and we felt an impulse to go back home. And by “home”, we do not signify a specific land or building; “home” is something wider, a notion that encompasses both the physical aspects of a place and our general attitude towards living. “Home” is our activities, our beliefs, our hopes, and our dreams.

Giannis Makridakis is one of the people who have succeeded in finding their “home”. When we visited him, his reasons for returning to agriculture —and most specifically the cultivation of mastic trees— became crystal clear. After all, isn’t agriculture a form of art, as literature surely is? But without further ado, let’s allow his own words to shed light on his journey and unique worldview.  

The purity of the agricultural lifestyle and the ailments of the art world

«It has been a year and a half since I wrote my last book. As a general rule, for the past few years, I have been writing once every two years. I have also found another occupation: my land. I tend to the gardens and the mastic trees, I make carob honey, and I like these activities more. I find them ‘healthier’ than dealing with some of the stuff and situations that make up the art world. This world is made of people carrying big egos and a lot of vanity, something that has always made me feel alienated. Now that I am more preoccupied with the land, I feel as if it has somehow assimilated me and I am more drawn to it. I have always felt repelled by the ailments of the art scene. This feeling of not being so drawn to the practice of writing has slowly crept in and I now enjoy the agricultural lifestyle.”

“Society is changing so rapidly and censorship becomes all the more intense. I am referring to the kind of censorship that the public exercises towards those who write, as well as to forms of self-censorship. Society does not possess the means to realize that each work was written under specific circumstances and during a specific era. You do not have to go further than the fact that Agatha Christie’s books are being rewritten and printed without the words or characterizations that are now thought of as ‘insulting’. Things change from one day to the next. You write something today and tomorrow it may be perceived as insulting by a sub-community of a community of people and find yourself having to apologize. So, to be a writer requires addressing your work to a cultivated society. If writing means being misunderstood, then it is better for us to make do with our farmlands.”

“This pathogeny of the literary world repels me; therefore, I am not interested in whether I will write again. If I feel, at some point, that there is something pressing inside me, something that will suffocate me if it remains unwritten, then I will write it. And this has been the case so far with all of my books. But I will not mind if I never write again.”

The literature tours of Chios

 “For the past few years, there have been creative writing workshops taking place at Ikaria each September. These workshops originated in Chios. People came here for three-day literary tourism events, which was a wish come true for readers who wanted me to take them on tours of places where I wrote one book or another.”

“Many readers, some of whom I have met in person around Greece and some whom I have not, told me that they decided to come to Chios after having read my stories and wished to visit the places described in them. They wanted to see the Castle of A sun with teeth or the Leper Colony of Lovokomeio which is mentioned at All for the best or Mersinidi, the setting of The right pocket of the robe. They were the ones that inspired me to turn these literary tours into a more organized affair. So, every year, after the Easter period, I organize some free tours that are mostly attended by the island’s visitors. More tours are also scheduled for the summer.”

“Furthermore, I visited various Greek cities, like Heraklion or Thessaloniki, as a creative writing instructor in a series of seminars that turned popular enough. Some attendees felt something unlock in them and started writing after taking them. They told me that the lessons were good for them so I decided to keep them going.”

“And so, the workshops and the tours are the two literary activities that are of interest to me and which I enjoy since I get to interact with people outside of the aforementioned circle of pathogeny. I am honored when readers come to meet me or visit the island after reading a book that stirred something in them. And I like to extend this honor in the form of the tours. I am a servant of literary tourism, this alternative form of tourism that can now even be found as an entry in the official Greek Dictionary by the Academy of Athens.”

His vision for Chios

 “Chios is the land where I was born and it made me into what I am today, whatever that may be. It has been a constant source of inspiration, a land I am fond of, cherish, and love. It is a land that leaves me no choice but to cultivate a vision of its future.”

“I believe that Chios should become a place known over the world for its many qualities. We live on an island that satisfies the requirements for the entry of three of its sites and cultural elements on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The first to have been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site was the monastery of Nea Moni. The traditional harvesting and production of mastic was also placed on its List of Intangible Cultural Heritage. The third entry should be Chios’s significant geological features: its paleolithic stones, fossils, etc. This geological heritage well deserves to be featured in the UNESCO Global Geoparks network. If we manage to accomplish a third entry in the UNESCO list, we will immediately succeed in attracting more visitors who wish to go off the beaten path.”

“Furthermore, we must take care of the process of mastic tree cultivation, a process that is also what makes Chios such a singular place. We should not spoil it by greedily employing methods of industrial agriculture. We need to respect the land that offers us this rare gift. We should employ eco-friendly cultivation methods that, in the long run, will not destroy the product, the people whose livelihood depends on it, and the land.”