“A growl of pain and anger rose in the city, resonating unappeasably, relentlessly, obliterating every other noise, rhythmically emphasizing the great lie. He lives, he lives, he lives! A growl that had nothing human about it. It did not rise from human beings, creatures with two hands and two legs and their own consciousness; it rose from a monstrous and mindless beast, the crowd, the octopus that, at noon, covered in clenched fists, distorted faces, and contorted mouths, flooded the Mitropoleos Square, then spread its tentacles into the adjacent streets blocking them, submerging them with the relentless lava that, in its torrential flood, swallowed every obstacle, deafening them with the live, live, live.”
Oriana Fallaci, companion of Alekos Panagoulis in the last years of his life, published A Man in July 1979 in Italy, three years after his untimely death at the age of 36. The book became a worldwide success and was translated into more than twenty languages. “He had died, the one I loved, and I had begun to write a novel that would give meaning to the tragedy,” writes Fallaci.
And in an interview, she states: “Reading Propp, I saw that Panagoulis' story corresponded to the structure of a fairy tale: the initiation, the period of great trial, the return to the village, the final challenge, the apotheosis or death.” And she adds: “I never say he was a hero – of course he was a hero, but it seems limiting to say that – he was first of all and above all a poet, an artist, and his heroism was a result of his poetry.”
