Sydney historian, Vasilis Vasilas, is set to officially launch his new book Little Athens: Marrickville on Sunday, May 9 at the Marrickville Town Hall at 4pm.
The book will focus on the personal narratives and photographs of Marrickville’s shops and businesses, looking at their longevity and success, as well as their contribution to local, national and international markets.
Vasilas tells The Greek Herald he’s looking forward to the launch as the book has been in the works for a long time.
“Part One of Little Athens: Marrickville was released late 2019 and it was meant to be officially launched under the auspices of the Greek Festival of Sydney April 2020. So much happened last year, with the COVID 19 outbreak and its restrictions, which brought our world to a sudden standstill and, like so many other events, it was postponed,” Vasilas says.
“One year has passed and I certainly did not sit around waiting for this launch. I just continued gathering stories and photographs and this version of Little Athens: Marrickville is very different because there are over thirty stories (plus photographs) added to the original part one – that is an extra two hundred pages!”
This upcoming launch will see Vasilis release a special ‘Festival Edition’ of his book, with only a very small number of books available. The limited edition copy will also feature a special foreword from the Mayor of Inner West Council, Darcy Byrne.
“It is quite a large volume… and there is a cross section of the iconic Greek businesses, ones that closed down and quite a number of recent businesses, so this highlights Marrickville’s past and present Greek shops and businesses, and it strongly suggests the Greek entrepreneurial presence will continue in Marrickville,” Vasilas explains.
And that’s not all that will continue as Vasilas says Little Athens is an “ongoing project” and there’s more to come after the book launch.
“Little Athens… is an extension of my work looking at the diversity of Greek shops and business in the Agora Series. Marrickville is an important thread within the greater Greek business network,” Vasilas concludes.
You can register for Vasilis’ book launch here.
