Raise Your Soul

A captivating portrait of Yanis Varoufakis’s political awakening, told through the history of his family, from 1924 to the present.

‘Written with a historian’s grasp of events, an economist’s rationalization of how things work and a storyteller’s understanding of the human condition, this is not just Varoufakis’ story, but ours’ IRVINE WELSH

When Yanis Varoufakis was eight years old, his uncle made him a model airplane out of matchsticks and cigarette papers; all he could find in his cell. Yet, to his dismay, his mother Eleni broke open the fragile gift, revealing a hidden message: instructions for fellow dissidents ahead of their forthcoming court martial. It was 1969 and Uncle Panayis was a political prisoner, captured and tortured for resisting the military dictatorship.

Dramatic in scope and deep in feeling, Raise Your Soul is an intimate portrait of three generations caught up in the whirlwind of history. It is also a remarkable narrative spanning one hundred years, beginning in post-colonial Egypt in the 1920s, and then tracing Greece’s tumultuous century through Nazi occupation, communist resistance, civil war, Cold War fracture, fascist dictatorship, socialist revival and present-day economic crisis.

At its heart are the women whose resilience, defiance and courage inspired the visionary economist most: Eleni, Anna, Trisevgeni, Georgia and Danaë. Through their lives, Varoufakis not only lays bare his own political soul, but confronts the dark forces of authoritarianism that still haunt Europe and beyond, reigniting hope in all of us that we can rise once more.

'Beautiful and inspiring, I couldn't put it down' ROSIE HOLT

'A new book by Yanis Varoufakis, one of the most important political figures of our times, is always momentous’ KEN LOACH