THE INVENTION OF A BARBIE LAND WAS MINE (THE LIPSTICK PAPERS BOOK REVIEW)

ONE OF THE FIRST stories I ever wrote, was when I was 8 years old, for a school composition. I imagined a visit to Barbie land: my Barbie doll had come alive and we travelled together to her world of beauty and blonde! Note that in Cyprus we had the Barbie doll, but not the Barbie paraphernalia for many years: the invention of a Barbie land was mine.

I never grew out of my love for Barbie and toys. Today, my research involves dolls and the impact they have on female and girl identity. That is why I was happy to buy this small collection from Agra publishing house: it's called Dolls and Toys (Κούκλες και Παιχνίδια) and features little texts on dolls and toys from authors like Rainer Maria Rilke, Charles Baudelaire, Umberto Eco and others.

Agra is a good publishing house, which brings to the Greek-reading public works of contemporary importance and of some peculiarity, which more "conventional" publishers would not have ordinarily thought to translate. Examples are a work on shadows in art, which began as a museum catalogue, a lovely monograph on angels, feminist books by Marilyn Yalom and so forth. If you are Greek or Greek-speaking, I would recommend Agra.

This book I don't like too much, to be honest. The texts (though I have not read them all) seem to me to be missing something. The chapter on dolls, for instance, failed to catch my attention, and I consider myself a doll researcher. 

However, the book is a good effort, and certainly unique among works published in Greek.

Have a good Sunday and be well! See you again soon :-)