Elena Georgiou

Writer, editor, and professor Elena Georgiou: author of Rhapsody of the Naked Immigrants and mercy mercy me; co-editor of The World in Us...

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The Invention of Cancer

By e g

And what would you say if you could? *

Poor, poor, you. You have finally realized that I am not all the ills of this land. You sent your letter of apology. I sent back a large piece of paper that I folded in quarters, and on which I wrote one line—I forgave you a long time ago. I hope that you are well now; that you no longer invent cancers to get your lovers to stay.

And you: the banquet you offered was store-bought. FYI: Styrofoam cups full of pomegranate seeds peeled and separated by grocery store employees is not a gesture of love. A lover knows that to offer pomegranate seeds you must do the peeling and the separating yourself. You never earned the label ‘lover’; a lover would never have left the beloved alone, unprotected, in a place where a human or an animal could have ripped me to shreds. Which is what you did.

You call yourself a doctor and you put your hands on stomachs, feeling for the pain. You diagnose. You prescribe. You offer advice.But you don’t do it to heal. You do it to mask who you are—someone in need of a diagnoses, a prescription, and advice on how to free yourself from the lie of you.

 

* This question comes from Bhanu Kapil’s book The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers (Kelsey St. Press, 2001) The book is structured around the responses to twelve questions. Bhanu encouraged me to give responding a try. And so I am.

NEW BOOK FOR 2018!

The Immigrant's Refrigerator
Fiction. Short Stories.
GenPop Books, 2018

If luck is on an author’s side, a book reaches its audience at the right time. Elena Georgiou’s The Immigrant’s Refrigerator can confidently make this claim. Populated with a cast of characters that shine the light on what it means to be an outsider in the early part of the 21st century, this story collection takes its reader into the private lives of those who have entered a country legally, others who were forced to enter illegally, and the rest who call a country home as a result of birth; characters searching for what they need to sustain them on their journeys towards a future that will not only be a place of refuge, but also one of hope.

Read more about The Immigrant's Refrigerator

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