bread for the living, bread for the dead

This book is about bread, which is about life, which is about death. Eight perspectives on bread are gathered here from across the Mediterranean Basin as well as the Black Sea. Taking the form of anthropological (auto)ethnography, short stories, political treatises, fairy tales, and a eulogy, this collection of texts reflects the many meanings of its core subject. 

Bread gathers, bread nourishes; it plays a central role in celebrations of life and rituals of mourning. Bread offers a site for collecting practices of self-reliance and camaraderie, as well as histories of migration and struggles over land. Combining vernacular wisdom, academic expertise, and embodied forms of intelligence, Bread for the Living, Bread for the Dead comprises a timely and nourishing collection of perspectives. Forgoing a placeless view, the publication centres localised knowledges of baking as a means of survival and community-making, a living heritage carried by each of us from wherever, uprooted, we came.

Bread for the Living, Bread for the Dead is the inaugural publication from TAVROS PRESS, a publishing programme initiated by TAVROS in 2025. Located in the eponymous neighbourhood of Athens, TAVROS PRESS grounds its mission in creating a space for thinking critically, imagining possible worlds, and learning to both listen and read deeply.

Contributed texts by: 

Jumana Emil Abboud (Palestine)

Juliet du Boulay (Greece / UK)

Maria-Thalia Carras (Greece)

Lia Dostlieva and Emine Ziyatdin (Ukraine)

Alix Guibert (France)

Kostantia Manthou (Greece)

Yiannis Palavos (Greece)

Neni Panourgiá (Greece / US)

Vivien Sansour (Palestine / US)

Alexander Strecker (Greece / Canada)

Pelin Tan (Turkey)