World Literature: Genre-Defying Writer Dimitris Lyacos (Greece) with Cellist Liam Battle

Photo Credit: Basso Cannarsa. Photo Courtesy: Lyacos Foundation.

Often cited as a likely candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature, Dimitris Lyacos‘s work defies genres. Not one to shy away from a challenge, Dimitris often incorporates religion, Classics, philosophy, and anthropology into his work, and in turn, his work has inspired a number of associated projects in dance, sculpture, video, opera, and music. In this program, audiences will enjoy readings and conversations on Dimitris’s impressive oeuvre and approach to writing, as well as musical collaborations and interludes inspired by Dimitris’s work, performed by Liam Battle. 

One featured musical composition is “Cairn,” a solo cello piece from the Nyctivoe cycle. The Nyctivoe cycle is a set of mixed chamber ensemble works by Gregory Rowland Evans that uses Dimitris’s writing. The writing supplies sung text for the cycle as well as a less overt overall aesthetic inspiration.

Come early for a solo cello performance from Liam Battle, starting at 6:30 pm, and stick around after the program for a public reception complete with light refreshments. 

This reading is presented in partnership with the Pittsburgh Review of Books, which publishes engaged, incisive, and smart cultural criticism and analysis.

About the Artists:

Dimitris Lyacos is the author of the internationally acclaimed trilogy Poena Damni (Z213: Exit, With the People from the Bridge, The First Death), a composite work translated into more than twenty languages. Writing across prose, poetry, and drama, his work examines violence, ritual, exclusion, and the transformation of coercive structures in contemporary societies. Excerpts from his most recent book, Until the Victim Becomes Our Own, have appeared in leading U.S. literary journals including Chicago Review, Image, MAYDAY, River Styx, and The Columbia Review. His interviews and essays have been featured in Los Angeles Review of Books, World Literature Today, BOMB, The Common, and Gulf Coast, among others. Until the Victim Becomes Our Own will be published by Indirect Books in January 2027.

Liam Battle is a cellist in search of spirituality and liberation through performance and ritual. The music he specializes in concerns a wide range of American and Western styles from the mid-century avant-garde to new experimental music and free improvisation. He regularly performs in settings that straddle the improvisation, classical, and experimental worlds, and he hopes to blur the lines that create such distinctions. As a soloist, classical concertizing has brought Liam in front of orchestras performing the concerti of Qigang Chen and Iannis Xenakis. Recently, he appeared as a soloist at the Vid Djúpið music festival, performing Kaija Saariaho’s Sept Papillons, and at the Damstädter Fierenkurse performing Marc Andre’s E as part of a new installation work commissioned by the institute. Liam holds a BM from the University of Cincinnati and an MM from the Cleveland Institute of Music. He is currently pursuing a DMA at Bowling Green State University.

About the Moderator:

Ed Simon is a lecturer in English at Carnegie Mellon University, where he focuses on the Public Humanities, and he edits The Pittsburgh Review of Books. A widely published author, his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, and The Washington Post, among dozens of others. He is the author of over a dozen books, including Pandemonium: A Visual History of Pittsburgh, An Alternative History of Pittsburgh, and Devil’s Contract: The History of the Faustian Bargain, named one of the “Best Books of 2024” by The New Yorker. 

About Your Visit: 

The in-house restaurant, Cucina Alfabeto, is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, but a cash wine bar will be available.