A Casual Stroll in Bannockburn:
Karanikas and KokonisTeam Up for Potential Film
Chicago--Nicholas D. Kokonis has written Arcadia, My Arcadia and Alexander Karanikas has finished a screenplay based upon the novel. Set in Arcadia, the novel dramatizes the personal odyssey of Angelos Vlahos, a bright village boy who struggles first to acquire a high school education and then to emigrate to America. Atlas carried the world on his shoulders. Could Angelos carry his whole family on his back?

"I identified very strongly with Angelos," Karanikas said, "for I survived similar problems growing up poor in a Yankee town. For one as Americanized as myself, the work by Kokonis revived and reaffirmed for me the delightful ethnic details of what it means to be Greek. It's been a great privilege for me to adapt for the screen such a vibrantly beautiful book as Arcadia, My Arcadia."

Karanikas is best known as an educator and poet, but he has also been associated with films. His screenplay "Marika," about the tragic women of Zalongo, won the Neptune Award at the Moondance International Film Festival 2003 held at Boulder, Colorado. He has long been a member of the Screen Actors Guild.


Kokonis is a clinical psychologist and college professor, and member of the Midland Society of Authors. "I consider it one of life's many blessings to know Prof. Karanikas and collaborate with him on the script," Kokonis said. "Alex is a most remarkable man. Brilliant and astute in his observation, humane as much as he is humorous, he's a man of many talents. Being able to write this wonderful screenplay in four weeks is but another testament to his genius."

Arcadia, My Arcadia, now in its second printing, has been attracting a growing cadre of admirers ever since its publication two years ago. "This is justifiable," Karanikas said, who confessed falling in love with the story at once. "The author shows an overwhelming compassion for people and a profoundly felt need to celebrate the cause and dignity of ordinary men and women," he said.

Book critics and readers alike have offered raving praises for Arcadia, My Arcadia, often dubbed "the synaxari of the immigrant." "It has a strong, haunting, literary quality," wrote Betty St. John, of Jack Scagnetti Literary Division. "Reminds me a lot of a Greek Steinbeck. Brilliant!"


(Posting date 12 May 2006)

For more information about Dr. Kokonis or to read reviews of Arcadia, My Arcadia, see HCS webpages:http://www.helleniccomserve.com/arcadia_reviewgraddy.html. Readers may obtain autographed copies of the "elegantly written, heart-stirring Arcadia, My Arcadia, ($25 each, plus $4 s/h, from St. Basil's Publishers, PO Box 1155, Deerfield, IL 60015.

HCS has posted a number of fine articles written by Prof. Karanikas. Readers may view these at the URL: http://www.helleniccomserve.com/archivekaranikas.html

HCS encourages readers to view other articles and releases in our permanent, extensive archives at the URL http://www.helleniccomserve.com/contents.html.

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