One is a CROWD – Pambos Kouzalis

Literature as a European mother tongue: In our series “One is a CROWD”, we introduce you to authors from all over Europe who will be involved in the CROWD omnibus reading tour, taking place from May to July 2016, featuring 100 authors who will be travelling through 15 European countries. We asked them three questions about text production, reception and mediation. If you have always wanted to know what a literary activist in Limassol looks like, meet Pambos Kouzalis!

Do you see yourself as an author? Are you the originator and main authority of your text? And if not, who is, if anyone at all?

Sometimes I feel that I am the originator and that I rule every single line in my texts. The very next moment it seems that I lose control and the poems remind me that I have just helped them to be put into words in order to find their way to meet the readers. I have not reached a final answer, but it doesn’t really matter, as long as inspiration keeps visiting me.

Do you like reader comments and feedback on your texts? What could be the consequences of a social editing?

I always need and expect to have reader comments. I need to know if I have managed to communicate with them, in what way and how far we have travelled together. Their comments on my work are like reflections in a mirror that reveal unseen areas of the poems. The result of social editing, of co-creation, would be a new body, painted with all different colours used by the editors. You might still be able to detect the original text, but even a single word could change the whole composition.

What is your favourite literary spot?

Famagusta Gate of the Venetian walls surrounding the old city of Nicosia.

 

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