Glotta #2

Published by Hydra Book Club, an independent book shop and publisher based on the artistically-inclined Greek island, Glotta is the latest addition to their growing literary collection. Positioned as ideal beach reading—to later be reflected upon in the colder winter months—the journal takes its name from the Attic word ‘Glotta’ (meaning ‘the physical tongue, but also language’) and nods to the island’s namesake, the mythical Greek serpent and polyglot Hydra. Primarily duotone, inside you’ll find essays, fiction, and imagery related to three key themes, drawing on both past and present, reflecting the founder’s belief that ‘the subterranean rivers of history flow closer to the surface than might initially appear.’

This second edition examines ‘dreams, archives and saliva’, celebrating the surrealism and magic to be found within the enigma of dreaming, alongside delving into the island’s lore. Inside, Demetra Vogiatzaki enthuses over the symbolic universe of Leonardo Crasso’s ‘Hypnerotomachia’—a dream within a dream—written in a hybrid language fusing Italian, Latin, Greek and inaccurate Egyptian hieroglyphs, and known to be one of the most beautiful books of the fifteenth century. Elsewhere, Frederika Tevebring explores Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn’s photographic archive ‘Eranos’, which drew on psychological reasoning and aimed to allow people to cross-reference dreams with past and present culture, and investigates the influence of her move to the Swiss region of Ascona at the beginning of the 20th century, a municipality where radicals and aristocrats mingled in pursuit of an ‘alternative to modern life’. 

Plus, further contributions from Iasonas Kampanis, Magdalena Krump, Franziska zu Reventlow, Tom Hare, Gabriel de Foigny, Ben Mauk, Daisy Sainsbury, and more.