Washington, June 22: Greek author and book presentation

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From: "HR-Net News Distribution Manager" <dist@hri.org>

Originally From: Connie Mourtoupalas <mourtoupala@greekembassy.org>

The War of Art The first novel of a Greek about a Greek

Meet the Author at the Embassy of Greece 2221 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC 2008

Thursday, June 22, 2006 - 6:30 p.m.

Philip Blackpeat is the pseudonym of a Washington, DC lawyer, who was born and educated in Athens, Greece, before coming to the U.S. to practice law. The protagonist of his novel, Philip Melanchthon, is himself a Greek lawyer, based in Washington.

The plot is set in motion by an off-the-cuff observation once made by Greek painter and sage, Yannis Tsarouchis: " if art were revolutionary, the police would stop it." Jumping off from that point, the plot takes off twisting through the world of art, war and politics to a shocking conclusion.

The War of Art mixes artfully a cocktail of Picasso, Proust and the Iraq war. It throws in a myriad of references to Greek history and culture, from the phrase attributed Churchill "today we say Greeks' fight like heroes; from now on we will say that heroes fight like Greeks" to the suicide of Greek poet Pericles Yannopoulos and the snaked-ringed "aegis" worn by Goddess Athena. Melanchthon (and Blackpeat) cast a darkly funny, Hellenic eye on contemporary America.

Kirkus Reviews call The War of Art "subtle and smart." The City Paper likens it to the X Files. The novel has also won acclaim as a finalist for the 2005 Norumbega Award for Fiction and the publisher's Editor's and Reader's Choice designations.

RSVP: 202-332-2727 Or: mourtoupala@greekembassy.org

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