Cosmodrome

“Diavazo” Young Adult Book Award (2012)
Greek State Award for Young Adult Fiction (2012)
White Ravens: Special mention (2010)

This book takes the reader on a trip into the everyday experiences of twenty-three young people, living across all of the continents, whose lives are foremost defined in terms of self-assertion and survival in a distorted world. They play in toxic landfills, live as child soldiers in the desert or as pirates in the Yemenese port city of Aden; they are victims of violence in schools or child labourers in Taiwan; they are given weapons that they even turn against their own parents. Nevertheless, amongst cardboard walls, sewage canals and strange friendships, they harbour their dreams of security, of hope, and of escape. In this collection of stories, Eleni Katsama allows her protagonists to speak with their own voices. Their realities are portrayed in an unsoftened and at the same time sensitive manner. This poetic representation reminiscent of film combines with the short, poignant sentences of emphatic youth to sustain the suspense all the way to the end. (Source: White Ravens)