Elias Petropoulos – An Underground world

A restless and inquisitive spirit, a foe of academics and the establishment, Petropoulos was the first folklorist in Greece who dealt with social outcasts and described people and situations ignored by his country’s official history.
He lived next to rebetika singers, bums, street-urchins, whores and sissies, prisoners and underground people who became the heroes of his books: The Brothel, Kaliarda (an Etymological Dictionary of Greek Homosexuals’ Slang ), The Handbook of the Good Thief, The History of the Condom, The Rebetika Songs, The Holy Hashish and others.