A reflection on loss, memory, and what we owe to the past, inspired by a night spent in Athens’ Acropolis Museum.

One day in late spring, Andrea Marcolongo walks into an outdoor store in Paris to buy a camp bed, a sleeping bag, and a flashlight. Her destination, not a forest or mountain peak, but the deserted halls of one of the most famous museums in the world, the Acropolis of Athens.

But it’s hard to be truly alone when you’re surrounded by the scarred beauty of the Parthenon, lit only by the moon and summoning shadows from the past. Amog them, Lord Elgin, the English diplomat who in the early 19th century orchestrated the controversial transportation of the Parthenon marbles from Ottoman Greece to London, where they remain today.

As the night goes by, the empty space left by the missing statues starts evoking other, more personal absences. Marcolongo reflects on the ever-changing relationship between present and past, and on the choices that make us who we are.

A powerful book that crosses time and space to remind us we cannot live in isolation but are continuously connected and indebted to others, from one of Europe’s most original classicists.

Andrea Marcolongo
Andrea Marcolongo is an Italian journalist, writers, Classics scholar, and former speech writer for Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. The Ingenious Language was a bestseller in Italy and in many of the other dozen countries in which it has thus far been published. She is also the author of The Heroic Measure.