The Story of a Life Scripted in Parentheses
By Tomazo Pagonis

A poetic novel of breath, guilt, and cinematic memory—where the narrator becomes the character, and the author becomes the accused.

Nefeli lives between brackets. Her life unfolds like a film—projected on a screen at the back of her mind, narrated by a voice she did not choose, and directed by a poet she may have imagined.

In a world where reality is rewritten by memory, and memory reshaped by guilt, Asphyxia follows a young woman caught in the paradox of observation and participation. Surrounded by an eccentric circle of friends—a suffocating Hippolytus, a hygienically loveless Phaedra, a disarmingly innocent Aphrodite, and a painfully well-connected Alexandros—she drifts between voices, images, and philosophical confessionals.

And always in the background: X. The elusive poet. The guest star. The ghost who writes her lines.

Told through fragmentary scenes, poetic reflections, and metafictional asides, this novel explores:
– the tyranny of authorship and the fragility of identity
– breath as both biological and symbolic survival
– the haunting role of guilt in shaping who we become

Translated from the Greek by Marilu Pagoni, Asphyxia is a lyrical and haunting journey through a life that may never have belonged to its protagonist.