"faulty boy" (Estia publications) is the first openly queer novel to become a best-seller in Greece.

The book is based on real events, transformed in the context of fiction. It describes in a humorous and sometimes tragic way the adventures of a queer elementary-school child, who grows up in a homophobic provincial area – a millennial child who tries to play with whatever toys are given to him: his friends, Pokemon, television, electronics and the violence of the Greek countryside. “faulty boy” portrays the abrupt landing from a childhood world, where everything is possible, a world with specific (conservative) standards and values. It explores with raw honesty the notions of identity, gender and the ways that the environment in which we grow up defines us, and asks the key questions that (still!) trouble Greek society.

Many barriers to Greek society continue to perpetuate simply because many adults are accustomed to living with them and therefore do not question them. In response to this way of being, the purpose of the book is to see the world through the eyes of a child, to return to when we believed everything was fluid, when we were constantly asking why, and questioning the limitations placed on us by adults and their society. All those non-existent rules about how a girl should be, how a boy should be, who we can love, are what the book tries to cauterize.

Commentary:

• George Kapoutzidis
• Patricia Felisa Barbeito, translator and professor of American literature, Rhode Island School of Design
• Marina Fokidi, curator and author