Maps of Literary Trails in Thessaloniki

Abstract. The work presented here is an approach on the subject of Literary Cartography, which deals with the topic of space in Literature as well as with the relationships that are formed between the literary and the real world. The aim of the work was to make the subject of Literary Cartography more widely known in the Greek academic circles. It was developed in the framework of a Diploma Thesis at the Laboratory of Cartography & Geographical Analysis (CartoGeoLab), Department of Rural and Surveying Engineering of the Faculty of Engineering of the Aristotle University (Thessaloniki, Greece) in collaboration with the School of Philology of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Aristotle University.

Literary Cartography has a long tradition dating back to centuries ago, and yet it is only rather recently that researchers started using maps as tools to analyse and interpret pieces of literary work, as well as to reach conclusions which would have been impossible without the help of cartographic material. While maps were initially used solely as complimentary additions to books, like helping the reader with the visualization of the geography of a novel, this is starting to no longer be the case. With the advent of the digital age and the GIS technologies, cartographers are not just presented with new challenges but also with new opportunities to further research previously unexplored aspects of Cartography. With the rise of digital technologies, which can deal with the complexities of literary space, maps are no longer just descriptive tools, but they can be used as guides to reach new conclusions.

The work resulted in a series of twelve (12) thematic maps, illustrating the literary geography of the works of ten Greek writers, whose stories take place in the city of Thessaloniki in Greece.