Stella Harvey - The Brink of Freedom

Stella Leventoyannis Harvey

When a well-meaning Canadian aid worker in Athens decides to take a young refugee boy into her care, she is unexpectedly jailed and accused of kidnapping.

Trailer

When a well-meaning Canadian aid worker in Athens decides to take a young refugee boy into her care, she is unexpectedly jailed and accused of kidnapping.

The boy is just one of thousands who desperately cross the Mediterranean in rickety boats in the hopes of using Greece as a conduit to a better life elsewhere. But here, on The Brink of Freedom, these refugees who have sacrificed so much could lose so much more.

Related Writings

Brink_Book_Club_Guide-S2019.pdf

“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.” Charles Dickens

“Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a book your composition of yourself is at stake.” E.L. Doctorow

“Beware of the bareness of a busy life.” Socrates

“Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out into the public.” Winston Churchill

“Roots are not in a landscape or a country or a people, they are inside you.” Isabel Allende

“Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun.” Pablo Picasso

“I am still learning.” Michelangelo

“None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.” Henry David Thoreau

“Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.” Jane Addams

“This city is what it is because our citizens are what they are.” Plato

“Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single hope.” Epictetus

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” Khalil Gibran

I am away this weekend at a retreat, so I asked author, Linda Roger, if I could post her review of my novel on my blog. She agreed and here it is below. Linda Roger's forthcoming novel, Bozuk, Exile Editions, fall 2016, is also about tremours, in Turkey, where Europe meets Asia. Thanks again, Linda!

“One stroke of lightning does not have to lead anywhere, but to the next stroke of lightning.” Alice Munro

“Without knowledge the world is bereft of culture. And so we must be educators and students both.” Roberta Bondar

“Every sunset brings the promise of a new dawn.” Anonymous

“A book is a dream you hold in your hand.” Neil Gaiman

“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” Winston S. Churchill

“Questions are never indiscreet, answers sometimes are.” Oscar Wilde

“The answers you get from literature depend on the questions you pose.” Margaret Atwood

“Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.” Aristotle

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” Seneca

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” Seneca

“At the best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.” Aristotle

“When an elephant is in trouble, even a frog will kick him.” Hindi proverb

“Bury me on my feet; I have spent my entire life on my knees.” Romani proverb

“One should be able to see things as hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.” F. Scott Fitzgerald

One is not born into the world to do everything but to do something.” Henry David Thoreau

Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.” Victor Hugo

“I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and retrace my steps.” Mahatma Gandhi

“It may be that the satisfaction I need depends on my going away, so that when I’m gone and come back, I’ll find it at home.” Rumi

“A pessimist sees the difficult in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” Winston Churchill

“You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest thing next to honour.” Aristotle

“The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” Marcel Proust

“The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.” Aristotle

“No notice is taken of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye.” Aristotle

“If you wish to be a writer, write.” Epictetus

“A writer of fiction lives in fear. Each new day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not.” Roald Dahl

“It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.” Anne Frank

“Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much.” Helen Keller

“To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield.” Alfred Lord Tennyson

“In Naples they say that a red light at an intersection is: Just An Opinion.” Anonymous

“The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but, the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.” John F. Kennedy

Love and compassion are necessities not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.” Dalai Lama

“Because I grew up with naïve expectations of people doing right, I get shocked by every little violation.” Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

"To love one another may require a leap of faith. The outcome though constitutes an act of birth for humanity. It also signifies the inevitable transition from the instinct of survival to morality.” Zygmunt Bauman (sociologist)

“I knew nothing but shadows and I thought them to be real.” Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Grey

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” Abraham Lincoln

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

I know that each one of us travels to love alone, alone to faith and to death. I know it. I've tried it. It doesn't help. Let me come with you. Giannis Ritsos, 20^th century poet

I utter these words with some trepidation when asked. The novel, if you can call it that, is an assortment of ideas, concepts, thoughts and characters. They’ve infiltrated my brain and refuse to leave. They nudge. They keep me up at nights. Come on, already. It’s time to tell our story.

“O sleep, O gentle sleep, Nature's soft nurse, how have I frightened thee? That thou no more will weigh my eyelids down. And steep my senses in forgetfulness?” William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2

I am Greek. With a name like Leventoyannis, this is no secret. I’m proud (eimai perifanos) of my cultural roots, brag about Greece’s contributions to medicine, language, democracy and the arts, and don’t mind repeating my name several times or spelling it for those intimidated by all those letters.