ABSTRACT
One of the most distinctive features of Greek fiction at the close of the twentieth century is the sudden proliferation of artists as the heroes of novels. Painters, poets, writers and musicians jostle for space on the pages of novels. This is an entirely new phenomenon of altogether cataclysmic proportions. Yet recently, over the past three or four years, the tide has turned: it is now difficult to find a novel that does not feature artists or at least intellectuals among its central heroes. In Road to Glory the worthy artist is another novelist who chooses to sell lemons to make a living, while printing his works on a duplicating machine so as to make no concessions to popular taste. Alexis Panselinos's other artisthero, the mask for Mozart, is also engaging, though slightly inferior on account of being a 'Westerner': for all his wantonness and sadistic tendencies, he is vindicated both as an artist and as a human being.
