The militant subject as tragic hero in Dimitris Nollas’s fiction

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This article focuses on the militant subjects in Dimitris Nollas’s fiction and considers them as tragic heroes that occupy liminal positions. Political violence, as a contested tactical option of militancy, posits pressing dilemmas and generates intricate explorations of morality and agency. After sketching a brief theoretical framework in order to assess recent theories of the tragic, I focus on the novella To Pempto Genos / The Fifth Age (Nollas, 1988) and the novel O Anthropos pou Xehastike / The Man in Limbo (Nollas, 1995) in terms of conflictual memory frames and ethical stances. Although they present similarities on the thematic level, a close reading of the texts elucidates the different approaches taken towards the militant past from the present standpoint and, consequently, the divergent implications for the future.</jats:p>