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Dora Rosetti (1908-1989) was a doctor and a writer. From 1961 until her death in 1989, she lived in Athens. She wrote a single book, "Her Lover", which was published in Athens in 1929, and again in 2005. The name Dora Rosetti was the pseudonym of Eleni/Nelli Kaloglopoulou-Bogiatzoglou. She wrote from an early age and was an active contributor to the literary journal for talented young persons.\[W9]\According to the testimony of Dora Rosetti, Rosetti's friends had read the texts in her literary diary and appreciated her talent. In conversation with her, they edited the text into a novel and published it: they wrote the final book ending, gave the author the pseudonym Dora Rosetti and chose the book title "Her Lover". (In Greek, the book title makes the gender of the two lovers (female) explicit).\[W9]\The book is written in the first person, and follows and records, in impressionistic style and through diary-style entries, the life and subjective, inner world of university student Dora, her passionate love for another woman, her student circles, hangouts, excursions, trips to the countryside and walks in the streets of Athens.\[W9]\The book caused a scandal in its time due to its taboo topic of lesbian love between women. Due to careless editing, the book included enough biographical detail for the real life persons to be identifiable behind the fiction. Hence, the author, alone or with her girlfriend, and under the weight of significant social pressure and shame, gathered existing copies from bookstores and destroyed a large proportion.\[W9]\After her initial writing and publication adventure with "Her Lover", Rosetti did not publish anything else. Her work and life came to light partly through the discussions that she had in 1983-84 with the activist and researcher Eleni Bakopoulou, who had sought her out. Bakopoulou carefully kept Rosetti's testimony and her texts and waited, as she had promised Rosetti not to publish anything on, or by her as long as she was still alive. After the publication of "Her Lover" in 2005, Bakopoulou, after making sure that Rosetti had passed away, published in 2006 in Odos Panos Journal the autobiographical testimony that Rosetti gave her, together with her own account of their meeting. |