"New Day": Shocking Stories About the Homeless, Life and Death, Crime and Punishment, Solidarity and Friendship (video).

The novel's characters grapple with the bitterness of their lives while seeking the light at the end of the tunnel. Homeless individuals provide a glimpse into street life through their stories and interpretations. Teos, Markonis, Laki, John, and Paul serve as the primary narrators of the book. However, the novel's central figure, the enlightener, so to speak, is the homeless Sebastian. He possesses a deep understanding of human weaknesses and pettiness, beauty, and secrets. While his stories are intriguing and sometimes fictional or mythical, they unveil the essence of humanity. "New Day" is a provocative novel about humanity.

The author of the book is Nikos Chrysos, and the idea for the novel was conceived 10 years ago. "I decided to write the book when I read about the murder in the Paris convent. Years later, I read about another murder. Two homeless people were killed and burned alive in Moscow. The sight of the burning body could not leave my mind. To be more honest, my novel is about the thirst to hear stories. In the book, I talk about life and death, crime and punishment, solidarity and friendship; it is about the physical and metaphysical metaphor of the story."

Chrysos employs fictional names for most of his characters, intending to globalize his story beyond Greek reality to encompass a European perspective. The Greek city where the events unfold is not explicitly mentioned in the book. Nikos Chrysos sheds light on the reality that occurs on the streets, often invisible to others. He portrays the everyday life of the homeless, stimulating the reader's interest and imagination, and meticulously narrates the life story of each hero, culminating in the fateful point of how they ended up on the street.

"I understood that people who live in big and beautiful European cities who have no home, or living conditions, are in a desperate and difficult situation. I realized that I should write about it. Some literary critics compare Sebastian, the book's main character, to Jesus, and his five friends to disciples. Sebastian is brutally burned by other homeless people, but he remains the main character of the story."

The brutal murder of Sebastian, one of the five friends and the central character of the novel, compels the other four friends to embark on a search to unravel the mysteries of his life and death. The entire novel is seasoned with memories of Sebastian and stories about him. The friends incessantly retell what Sebastian left them as a legacy, gradually becoming involuntary and melancholic storytellers who believe that by recounting the stories of their older friend, they can somehow revive him.