Odysseas Fidanza, amateur philosopher and flautist, was born in England in the late 1960s to an Italian father and Greek mother. A decade later the family relocated to his mother’s family village, to a life interwoven with the rituals and mediaeval music of the Greek Orthodox church, the miracles and judgements of Roman Catholicism and the Socratic traditions of inquiry and debate – all this with the gods of ancient Greek myths whispering in an “English” young man’s ear.
At age sixteen Fidanza moved alone to Athens to study, then soon embarked upon his career as a professional musician. For the next decades, here in the city that laid the foundations of western civilization, he would struggle in private studies and writings to reconcile the teachings of ancient religions and philosophies with the reality of our world today.
When his studies lead him at last to the apocryphal gospels, he knew that he had found the missing piece. Here, in his first published novella, Odysseas imagines another hero’s journey, the homecoming to light of the angel Semiaza, to this our fragile planet embroiled in moral hypocrisy, conspiracy theories, genocide, and greed. A classic allegory of evil and good – but is all quite what it seems?
Fidanza has now returned to his mother’s family village and enjoys times of quieter contemplation on the beautiful Greek green island of Corfu.