by Christos Zabounis

As a publisher, author, and avid reader, I cannot help but take pleasure in the noise—or, to be more lenient, the interest—surrounding the forthcoming book by former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. While I lived and worked in France, I had the opportunity, through my profession, to meet fellow journalists who, alongside their regular writing, made a living by ghostwriting biographies of celebrities. I did the same upon returning to Greece, founding, along with my sister, the publishing house Fereniki. In the Anglo-Saxon world, these people are called ghost writers, while in France they are known as nègres. In Greece, we refer to them as unseen authors. Speaking from experience, for a 762-page book like Ithaca to be published, it takes a great deal of time—we’re talking years—unless one is Honoré de Balzac and pressed by debt. It also requires ease with language, not to mention a certain talent. It would, however, be improper of me to adopt the rumor that the aforementioned politician merely signed and did not write his own book. He surely received assistance, both in gathering archival material and in editing the final text. What I can surmise is that the book may have originated from a series of oral interviews, given his natural fluency in speech. An interesting aspect of the “Tsipras book” is that, while most politicians write their memoirs once they have retired from public life, he chose to do so at the moment of his re-emergence. In a country with a high intellectual standard such as France, this phenomenon represents a new trend—see, for instance, the recent examples of former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who is running for the presidency, or former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, who is also positioning himself for the same role. Hmm. The consulting firm advising our domestic former prime minister is based in Paris and goes by the name Publicis Communications. Pas mal.