The First Death

infobox Book |
name = The First Death
title_orig = Ο πρώτος θάνατος
translator = Shorsha Sullivan


image_caption=
author = Dimitris Lyacos
cover_artist =
country = United Kingdom
language = English
series =
genre = Poetry
Postmodernism
publisher = Shoestring Press
release_date = March 23, 2000
media_type = Print (Paperback & Paperback)
pages = 37 pages
isbn = # ISBN-10: 1899549420 # ISBN-13: 978-1899549429
preceded_by = Nyctivoe (2001)
followed_by =
Dimitris Lyacos’s The First Death is the latest installment of a narrative sequence entitled Poena Damni. The book was originally published in Greek in 1996 and has been translated in English, German,Spanish and Italian. Its two predecessors depict the Odysseus-like wanderings of a figure who, in postmodern style, labors to create the world he explores. In the First Death, the result of his voyaging is that he himself is on the verge of dissolution, a castaway who is also an abortion, dying before he has ever achieved birth. [The Journal of Modern Greek Studies,Volume 19, 2001/ John Hopkins University Press. Robert Zaller - Recent Translations from Shoestring Press. Tassos Denegris, Dimitris Lyacos, Dionysios Solomos.] "The First Death" consists of 14 sections, which evoke an impression of surrealistic meditations on mortality and physical and mental disintegration and decay. The imagery is dense and nightmarish, replete with sensations of hallucination, delirium, synesthesia and putrefaction. Insomnia and insanity stalk the mental landscapes of the poem. The pervasive vision is apocalyptic, with whispers of Homer's "Odyssey,"of Eliot's "Wasteland," and of Georg Trakl, the Austrian poet killed in action during World War I. Embedded in the text are oblique classical references: the presence of Orpheus, suggested by images of dismemberment, and echoes of Dionysos. [Kathimerini English Edition, 4 May 2000 Jena Woodhouse Lyacos: A "feast of all fruits"] . The work, with its bleak subject matter and harrowing built-up, presents, arguably, one of the most violent examples of poetry writing in the context of Modern Greek literature.