19 Dec 2023

When Writing Allows You To Overcome Drama Interview With Nikos Precas

Each of his words is imbued with literature and experience. Nikos Precas is one of the authors whose words and pen are one. His latest novel published by Brandon Athens in ruins is a novel which marks, which we remember and which gives an irresistible desire to be interested in the author. 

In this exchange, Nikos discusses the need to write to overcome challenges, what bilingualism brings to writing and all the interest that editorial work presents in an author's journey. 

How do you view the profession of author? What does it mean to be an author today? 

To this question, Nikos Precas is above all challenged by the three terms that compose it and which guide his thinking to answer it. And through this reflection, he reveals his fascination for the power of words and speech. 

“Regard is a word that I like. It is the look that defines what we become from the moment we start writing. To write is to succumb to the power of a perspective given to us and which allows us to see the world without any weariness”. Without any fatigue or forgetfulness. 

For Nikos Precas, it is a question of acuity that we rarely experience; the gaze as being at the root of writing even before there is the birth of a word.

“For me, writing means living up to this gaze. From my perspective and that of others: on nature, on objects, on men.”

The image is beautiful. When everyone writes, they then become master clairvoyants. The smallest ordinary fact becomes a universe, a sort of remembrance of things without our knowledge. “And it upsets me every time.” For him, by writing we learn to look. 

What about the two other terms that concern him? Firstly, the notion of profession for which a little etymology can only be beneficial. Profession, a very old word, comes from “magisterium”, that is to say service, servant. 

“We therefore become a servant of something; someone who offers a service, who administers” and this is what Nikos Precas appreciates in the profession of author: being at the service of the word, at the service of the world's view, “servant of a reading of the world which can easily be lost in the din of the world”. 

For him, the profession of author does indeed exist in this dimension. But there remains the sociological aspect and this then becomes questionable when we talk about the absence of training recognized by the State, the remuneration, the recognition of know-how. 

For Nikos Precas, author “must remain a profession apart” from others, well beyond the remunerative dimension. 

Finally, in the third term, the heart of the subject: the author. “I really like this word. It’s curious because it makes me think of the month of August, in the heart of summer”. 

What is even funnier and stranger is that Nikos Precas shares with me the etymology of the term author which fully matches his intuition. Author means full growth, flowering, directly linked to the Indo-European root “aveg” which means August. 

“The author is a progenitor, who makes things increase, who constructs.” Nikos Precas reminds us that we can be author of a crime, and that the authors are ultimately all, in reference to Georges Bataille. 

“Writing is a sacrifice of speech, transported to another place where it serves no purpose in itself. It is to free it of its usefulness and make it free. Writing is playing with it and making it say things that we cannot make it say in everyday life. We violate the language, we keep it alive thanks to these displacements, these twists.” 

The authors would therefore be both criminals and guardians of the language, preserving it from hyper-utility by tearing it from the constraints of everyday life. 

How did you become an author? What has been your journey so far and how do you analyze it? 

A sociologist by training, Nikos Precas came late to fiction writing: “I have not had much experience writing fiction, novels, short stories or even poetry. On the other hand, I have a very long practice of writing for professional publications, sociology journals, reports.”

For him, it was above all reasoned writing, obeying rules. But, little by little, a weariness set in over the years: “I found this writing timid, comfortable, revolving around controlled and controllable things. ”

A boredom which led him to scribble texts in the evening until the Greek economic crisis of the 2000s. Of dual French-Greek nationality, Nikos Precas was deeply affected by this crisis, the first trigger for his fiction writing.

“As you wanted to create something around writing and literature with I am an author, I wanted to write about this experience, this Greek tragedy”. Without him deciding it, a new language presented itself to him: “not a language of analyst and analysis, but a language of looking, of sensations, of senses, emotions”. 

A mixture of fiction and reality, free, true for him, his writing style was revealed and then affirmed. Its realization? First several self-publishing publications from Edilivre; for several years. 

I had to become something in the face of this tragedy, like a necessity, and it was through literature that this happened.” 

Second trigger, second tragedy, in 2023 with the death of a loved one in the Bataclan attacks. “Writing and literature were a means of supporting, of apprehending tragedy.” Again, two self-published publications. 

It was pure chance to move from self-publishing to publishing. At the Grenoble book spring, someone handed him a prospectus, that of a publishing house which trains authors, whose publications stand out and whose editor translates from Greek. 

Next step, Nikos Precas sends his last manuscript, the one which will give Athens in ruins to Brandon & Company. This novel is the last in the cycle of the Greek crisis for Nikos, and shows through its story “what the human being can become from this ultimate ordeal ”. 

Without this meeting with Caroline Nicolas, there is a good chance that the novel would have been self-published like the others before it. 

 Have you encountered any obstacles or challenges in your journey as an author and how did you overcome them?

Nikos Precas also highlights the challenge of writing for others. "Being exposed to the eyes of others for worse and better is a test for the author every time”. 

When the reviews are positive, Nikos Precas welcomes them in the sense of requirement and not that of self-satisfaction, in order to always aim for the quality of the writing. As for negative criticism, we must hear it because it can help us progress. 

“Once the book is published, it no longer belongs to us. It is the reader's world that begins, it is almost a status of inferiority for the author in this case. It is the vulnerability of the author who has stopped writing and who is judged.”

Finally, Nikos Precas highlights another difficulty as an author: that of being able to talk about his writings. "When I talk about the book, I feel like I'm being awkward. Either I say too much or not enough. There is frustration with my criteria.”