#ChthonicThursday: Asphodelus

February 22, 2024

The asphodelus is a perennial plant with tall, white clusters of flowers that resemble a pinecone, and Homer’s Odyssey indicates it as a plant connected to Hades and the afterlife. When the Romans thought the Greek vision of the afterlife was a tad too bleak and came up with something to convince people to die in battle for King and Country, they divided the afterlife between a place for the bad and a place for the good. Somehow, fields of asphodelii ended up being the place where you keep people who haven’t been neither good nor bad. A place for useless people, you might say.

Leo Ortolani, Tapum

A un certo punto ci sarà una battuta, in questo fumetto, e riderete. Sappiate che è l’unica. Com’è giusto che sia. Se devo paragonare quest’opera a qualcosa, il confronto più azzeccato è probabilmente lo spettacolo che Marco Paolini trasse dal Sergente nella neve di Rigoni

August 9, 2026 9:00 am

Summertime

Omeros in the Caribbeans

Derek Walcott was a Saint Lucian poet, playwright, and painter, and one of the major voices of Caribbean literature. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992, and his work often explores Caribbean history, identity, colonial inheritance, and the meeting of European and African

August 9, 2026 6:00 am

books and literature

Ioanna Papadopoulou’s The Castaway and the Witch

I had a genuine “oh shit” moment when I read the author’s preface saying this was darker than “Winter Harvest” because – and I absolutely ADORED “Winter Harvest” – that was pitch-black dark. I thought “we’re all going to die”. This maybe has something to

August 8, 2026 9:00 am