• Type: Autobiography / Interview

• Atmosphere: A vivid, impetuous, and utterly honest narration that unfolds a novel-like life.

• Her journey from the refugee neighborhood of Vyronas to the salons of French intellectuals.

• Revealing testimonies about her acquaintances with great personalities of the era.

• Her philosophy on life, power, fate, and the responsibility of each of us.

• For the disarming way that Arveler talks about both her successes and her difficult moments.

• For the feeling that you are sitting across from her, listening to a legendary woman speak to you like a friend.

• Because it reminds us that life requires courage and that we shouldn't look for excuses not to act.

Are you fascinated by the true stories of people who started from scratch and reached the top, always remaining spiritually restless and free?

“My life is a succession of coincidences that I knew how to seize by the hair. I never believed in alibis. When something didn’t go well, it wasn’t the weather’s fault, it wasn’t fate’s fault, it was my own inability to recognize the moment. What we call luck is the ability to see opportunity where others see obstacles.

I grew up in a time that did not allow us to be weak. In Vyronas, we learned that dignity cannot be bought and that education is the only ticket to freedom. This spirit kept me standing at the Sorbonne, this guided me in every decision I made, no matter how difficult it was.

This narrative is not an account of laurels, but an attempt to show that life is responsibility. So, from me: a life without alibis, with its mistakes and its rights, but always with my head held high and my gaze fixed on tomorrow.”

Eleni Glykatzi-Ahrweiler is one of the most prominent figures in the global academic community. She was the first woman to serve as president of the History Department at the University of Sorbonne and the first female Rector in the 700-year history of this university. With significant contributions to Byzantine studies, she has been honored with top international distinctions, while remaining an active voice in literature and the arts, upholding the values of humanism and Greek education.

I was born in Vyronas, at what is now 21 Kolokotroni Street, almost exactly where I am sitting even now, about a hundred meters further down, while all my siblings were born in Asia Minor. I am sitting on Usakiou Street, that is near Metamorphosis. As my mother used to say, between Agia Triada, Metamorphosis, the Holy Apostles, and Prophet Elias. I have a big age difference with my siblings. In fact, my mother, with five children, all refugees, raised in two small rooms, when she became pregnant with me, wanted to abort me – so they said. And there was a midwife then, the mother of Xirouchakis – who was a politician, I believe with Tsirimokos – and she told her: "Kallirroi, leave this child alone, maybe it will be your best one." I was kept, but on the day I was born, August 29, 1926, two old ships that my father owned, with which he had brought his family from Marmara, sank both in the Fleves of Vouliagmeni. So I was born that day, I was the little, the unlucky one.

My mother, Kallirroi, was from Constantinople, everyone thought she was from Smyrna. So I have no connection with Smyrna. However, I wrote a book about Byzantine Smyrna. My mother married my father, who was from the region of Moudania.