A gripping chronicle, a personal story of the “displaced” 20th century (1923-2023), an account of the author’s debt to the five women who shaped him.
As the car came to a stop, Eleni embraced me with her right arm, whispering in my left ear, “keep your spirits up, my boy.” The hermetically sealed shutters on every balcony door and the deserted entrance were the first sign that this was no ordinary hotel.
When Yanis Varoufakis was eight years old, his mother took him with her to visit her brother in an ESA detention facility. It was 1969. This is how he begins the story of the five women whose resilience, defiance, and courage still inspire him: Eleni, Anna, Trisevgeni, Georgia, and Danae.
With emotional intensity, Yanis Varoufakis sketches the whirlwind of History that swept away the five women, from three different generations. Picking up the thread from Egypt in the 1920s, he moves through the Occupation, the Resistance, the Civil War, the Stone Years, the Junta, the Metapolitefsi, and the Bankruptcy.
By preserving their stories, Varoufakis not only reveals his own political heritage, but also confronts the dark forces of authoritarianism that continue to haunt us, rekindling the hope that we can rise again.
“A fascinating book, sensitive and at the same time witty. A history of modern Greece, the biography of an unconventional family, a narrative that at times feels like a thriller. Above all, a tribute to the rare women who played a decisive role in Yanis Varoufakis’s life and shaped him as a person. I recommend it without reservation.” — Brian Eno
“Yanis Varoufakis sets aside his familiar essayistic style and adopts a purely personal tone. This time he sketches the collective portrait of five unruly women who defined his life and who, each in her own way, defied patriarchy and authoritarianism.” — The Guardian
“Behind every great man there is a great woman. In Yanis Varoufakis’s case, there are more. Written with the incisive eye of a historian, the rational thought of an economist, and above all the deep understanding of the human condition of a master storyteller, Keep Your Soul High is not only their story; it is ours too.” — Irvine Welsh
“I read it with great interest and pleasure. Highly illuminating.” — Paul Cartledge, Professor of Greek History at the University of Cambridge
“A deeply heartbreaking, angry, and at the same time entertaining portrait.” — Greek Herald
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