Professor George Paxinos officially launched his environmental crime novel, A River Divided, at Ashfield Town Hall on Tuesday night.
The event, which was part of The Greek Festival of Sydney and hosted by the Inner West Council Library, was a huge success with over 100 people in attendance.
This included the Consul General of Greece in Sydney, Christos Karras; the Trade Commissioner of Greece in Australia, Katia Gkikiza; the President of the Greek Orthodox Community of NSW (GOCNSW), Harry Danalis; and the Chair of the Greek Festival of Sydney, Nia Karteris.
READ MORE: Professor George Paxinos’ 21-year writing odyssey comes to an end with ‘A River Divided’.
Every attendee listened intently as a number of speakers spoke at the book launch such as Professor Paxinos, Dr Con Costa, Professor Mat Santamouris, the novel’s editor, Kiriaki Orfanos, and guest speaker, Angelya Vassiliadis.
Professor Paxinos discussed the storyline of his novel and how it pays homage to religion, the environment and neuroscience.
Dr Costa then spoke of the relevance of the novel to feelings of grief today, whilst Professor Santamouris focused on the topic of over-population, which is also a theme which runs through A River Divided.
READ MORE: Professor George Paxinos named among pioneer Greeks in medicine and science.
After this, Ms Orfanos shared what it was like to edit and transform Professor Paxinos’ scientific writing into literature, before Ms Vassiliadis read a passage from the novel and spoke of how she couldn’t put the book down once she had started reading.
At the conclusion of these formal proceedings, which were chaired by prominent environmentalist Liz Courtney, attendees were treated to a special performance of five songs by Efi Karra and two Argentinian singers, Justo and Miguel.
This was followed by question time and a book signing session by Professor Paxinos.
“I felt that I was amongst friends yesterday,” Professor Paxinos tells The Greek Herald after the event. “It didn’t have to be a good joke for the audience to laugh. It was great.”
