Eua Ionnou was
born in Meligalas in the Peloponnese, a
community she came to despise as a parochial tractor town redolent of manure
and devoid of any thought beyond agriculture. Raised by illiterate shepherds,
she ran away to Istanbul
and made a precarious living as an unofficial tour guide and transgender
magician. Whilst in Istanbul
she became fluent in Turkish, French and English and, crucially, discovered the
work of George Gemistus, Γεώργιος Γεμιστός the late Byzantine philosopher
Plethon. Almost all her work, in the light of Plethon’s teachings, is a single
project – The Golden Restoration of the
Byzantine Empire. This bought Ionnou in to conflict with the Turkish
authorities and led to her deportation. Her publisher Νέα Ορθόδοξη Εκδόσεις
(New Orthodox Publications, NOP in the west), closed down in 2008 two weeks
after the publication of her magnum opus.
