Nikos Papastergiadis, university professor in Melbourne and brother of the president of the Greek Community, Bill Papastergiadis, was a guest on the program “Take Your Time” on Voice of Greece, on the occasion of being awarded the Michael Crouch Award for his book John Berger and Me—a biography of the renowned author who won the Booker Prize in 1972.
Born and raised in Australia to Greek immigrant parents, Nikos Papastergiadis has devoted his academic work to sociology, with a strong focus on migration studies. In recent years, he has divided his time between England, Greece, and Australia.
On the program, he recounted how he met John Berger, who invited him to spend summers at his estate in France. The experiences of those ten summers with the celebrated author, painter, and poet became the starting point for writing the biography that earned him the Michael Crouch Award.
In this biography, elements of Berger’s life are interwoven with fragments from the lives of Papastergiadis’ migrant parents. As he revealed, the book may also serve as a first step into literature—blending it with history and memory—just as his mentor, the radical art theorist who passed away in 2017, had once advised him.
With Nikos Papastergiadis, the conversation also turned to the Greek language and the challenges faced by second- and third-generation Greek children in Australia.