Acclaimed British writer Ali Smith’s new novel Artful is out and its cover would catch the eye of anyone familiar with Greek cinema oldies: it features Aliki Vougiouklaki, one of Greece’s greatest movie stars of the 50s and 60s.

The book is a cross between ghost story and essay: the narrator is haunted by her dead lover’s ghost, while writing lectures about art and literature. Vougiouklaki features in a gamin-type picture at the cover of the book, but also plays a miniature but crucial role in the narrative: in one of the book's most affecting moments, the narrator discovers an essay by her lover, which is, together a love letter, a request for forgiveness and a brief treatise on the late Greek film star.

Vougiouklaki was one of the most popular actresses of Greek cinema, dubbed the "National star of Greece". She starred in 42 films, and her biggest success -Lieutenant Natassa- held the Greek box office record for 30 years. But how come a Greek actress of the 50s and 60s features in a British author’s book, one may ask. In an article in the British newspaper The Observer, in 2011, Ali Smith explains that she was idly watching Greek TV one evening on holiday, when she came upon a Vougiouklaki film and loved it. 

"Not that I'll know that 10 years on, in 2010, when I'm in, what I suppose, is a quite deep depression after my dad dies […] that one of the things that will get me through this dark time will be watching a lot of snippets, in the middle of the night, of bright benign Greek musicals starring the evanescent Vougiouklaki, on YouTube. Trava bros! she sings in 1961, when I'm an embryo," Smith writes.