Another Now

A year ago today we buried Iris in a red and black coffin. Red for the revolutionary fire constantly blazing in her belly. And black to remind us, as she kept doing, of the irreducible dark side in us all.

Iris s funeral was as she would have wanted it, save for Eva s absence. The tributes provided a fitting encomium for my extraordinary friend but the words washed over me. Some twenty years had passed since I had last seen Iris and Eva together. They had been sitting on Iris s patio, Eva holding her usual glass of Pinot Grigio, Iris scolding her in tirades punctuated only by mouthfuls of chilled vodka. Why on earth did Iris ever take Eva under her wing? I recall wondering.

For a woman who could never have conceived of a good market, a noble war or an unjust strike, it was an improbable friendship. Eva was a recovering investment banker turned true-blue, dry, academic economist. Far from having a winning personality, if anything she exemplified Oscar Wilde s definition of the cynic she who knows everything about prices but nothing about values. And I m not even sure she has a clue about prices! Iris once said teasingly in her presence. Nonetheless, as Iris s casket was being lowered into the ground, Eva s absence weighed heavily.

With Iris and Eva gone, Costa was the only other one left of our old gang. On the day Iris died I had messaged him twice, using an old number I still had. To no avail. Resignedto endure the funeral without him, I was surprised when I glimpsed him there. He was not easy to spot, a solitary figure leaning against a plane tree, watching from a distance as Iris descended to her resting place.

Once the mourners began slowly to disperse, I approached him, and his face thankfully brightened up. Though his youthful cheerfulness was all but gone, his eyes still glimmered with his characteristic blend of brilliance and sentimentality. But as we talked he seemed harried and close to paranoia, focused terribly on the diary and how

Yanis Varoufakis is the author of the bestseller Talking to My Daughter: A Brief History of Capitalism and two previous books, Adults in the Room, a memoir of his time as finance minister of Greece, and an economic history of Europe, And the Weak Suffer What They Must?, both of which were number one bestsellers.
 
Born in Athens in 1961, Yanis Varoufakis was for many years a professor of economics in Britain, Australia and the USA before he entered politics. He is co-founder of the international grassroots movement, DiEM25, and in 2019 won
election as one of its representatives in the Greek Parliament. He is currently Professor of Economics at the University of Athens.
yanisvaroufakis.eu / @yanisvaroufakis

"Varoufakis offers an alternative vision to what he brands Zuckerberg s Technofeudalist nightmare... In offering a glimpse of how things might be different, Another Now invites us to contemplate possibilities that are not without their challenges, but worth entertaining nonetheless." -- PopMatters

"A landmark work ... A vision of a new society with new ways of thinking is possibly the most important thing an artist can offer at the moment." -- Brian Eno
"One of my few heroes. As long as people like Varoufakis are around, there still is hope." Slavoj i ek

"I could not recommend this more. If you're looking for a sense of optimism, a sense of political possibility, this book is very important." -- Owen Jones

"I am enjoying Yanis Varoufakis's Another Now. The way we live is not inevitable" -- Jeannette Winterson

Another Now takes us into a wormhole to an alternative present, not to marvel us with flying cars or barren cities, but to get a glimpse of a post-capitalistic world. Combining a provocative thought experiment with a deeply original sci-fi narrative, Yanis Varoufakis asks us to consider how humanity can ever balance freedom with fairness, allowing us to come to our own conclusions the book is both visionary in its search for new possibilities and realistic in its embrace of the burdens, contradictions, and complexities of our human nature. Alfonso Cuarón, Academy Award-winning director of Roma

"There is something exciting, even invigorating, about envisioning this world alongside Varoufakis ... one finishes Another Now buzzing with a sense of possibility." The Monthly

"Another Now is structurally, ideologically and linguistically an extraordinary work." -- Zoe Williams

"I've absolutely loved reading [Another Now] ... the second I started reading it, it surprised and intrigued me." -- Matthew Taylor, RSA

"Another Now is not only a marvellously good read - it is a notable addition to the literature of social change." The Wire