‘Dendrites’ by Kallia Papadaki was originally published in 2015 in Greek and won the European Union Prize for Literature in 2017. This compelling novel, which recounts the fortunes of a Greek immigrant family striving to realize the American dream, is now set to be released on September 3 in English, translated by Karen Emmerich and published by World Editions.

Papadaki was born in Didymoteicho, Greece, and grew up in Thessaloniki. She works as a professional screenwriter and has won multiple international film awards for her work. Besides winning the EU prize, Dendrites was also shortlisted for the Anagnostis Best Novel Award and won the Clepsidra Best Young Author Prize.

Set in crisis-ridden 1980s Camden, NJ, among a community of immigrants trying and failing to realize the American dream, Dendrites follows the young, orphaned Minnie who is taken in by the Campanis family. Ex-hippie Susan and her husband Basil, a second-generation Greek-American, along with their daughter Leto react to Minnie’s arrival in ways that make old family scars flare up again.

Papadaki spoke with The National Herald about the book and her writing process.

TNH: What inspired you to write Dendrites?

Kallia Papadaki: If anything, it was my years studying economics in the States at a liberal arts school. I recall one decisive late night at a Greek diner in Upstate New York, close to Bard, where I was studying at the time. There was this old man in his early 90s, sitting alone at a table all the way in the back, looking for someone to start a conversation with. My accent must have given me away – or perhaps I said a word or two in Greek – but we started talking. He had immigrated to the States when he was 22 and had never returned to Greece, not because he didn’t want to but because he hadn’t become the man he had dreamt of becoming. A plane ticket would cost him his meagre life savings. And even if he did manage to buy it, he said, what was there to be proud of in the eyes of his fellow countrymen? I knew at that moment that I wanted to write a novel about those who traversed the Atlantic in order to find a better life but did not quite make it; about those who failed, time and again, and never realized their American dream. So I took a magnifying glass and delved into the lives of migrants of a past era, with all their small victories and great disappointments. I wanted to write a story that would move me, a story about the eternal human condition.

TNH: How long did the writing process take from idea to publication?

KP: Altogether it took three years; one year dedicated to research, and two of writing on and off, depending on my day-to-day schedule and other work-related deadlines. It was a frustrating but rewarding process, especially as, at the time, we in Greece were sinking into an economic and migrant-and-refugee crisis.

TNH: How was the process different from your work in the film industry?

KP: Writing’s a totally different medium, a different way of working; but its core essence remains the same. After all, it’s all about story-telling, the need to narrate, to bring to the fore stories that matter, to shed light and meaning on our everyday unimaginative, trite lives. Of course, writing a novel means facing your own limitations every single day, whereas when it comes to screenwriting, a script is the vehicle for something bigger that necessitates collaboration.

TNH: What was the most challenging aspect of writing the book?

KP: Writing about an era I haven’t lived in and a place I’ve never been to; reinventing the past in a way that life, at that time, couldn’t have been any other way.

TNH: What was the most rewarding aspect?

KP: There’s nothing more rewarding than placing the last sentence in a book and somehow, deep down, having the feeling that you’ve come full circle, that you’re still in one piece, that it was all worth it: every single doubt, every writer’s block and breakdown.

TNH: What are you working on next?

KP: I’m working on a new novel I’d rather not talk about. I hate talking about future projects, especially when it comes to books and films. The minute I put them down in solid words, all the magic and poetry’s gone, they become a heavy, unbearable weight on my shoulders.

Dendrites by Kallia Papadaki, translated from the Greek by Karen Emmerich, is available online.