Z213: Exit

Z213: Exit is a 2009–2018 novel by Greek author Dimitris Lyacos. It is the first installment of the Poena Damni trilogy. Despite being the first of the trilogy in narrative order, the book was the third to be published in the series. The work develops as a sequence of fragmented diary entries recording the solitary experiences of an unnamed, Ulysses-like persona in the course of a train voyage gradually transformed into an inner exploration of the boundaries between self and reality. The voyage is also akin to the experience of a religious quest with a variety of biblical references, mostly from the Old Testament, being embedded into the text which is often fractured and foregoing punctuation. Most critics place Z213: Exit in a postmodern context exploring correlations with such writers as Samuel Beckett and Cormac McCarthy while others underline its modernist affinities and the work's firm foundation on classical and religious texts.

Z213: Exit is difficult to classify by genre, and is simultaneously a novella, a poem, and a journal. In contradistinction to "factual report" works such as If This Is a Man by Primo Levi, the work adopts a mode of oneiric realism whereby horror is forced beneath the surface of consciousness only to emerge again in new and increasingly nightmarish forms. Oblique references to tragedies of recent human history are apparent, although, ample Biblical and mythical motives suggest a far broader project. The book can be read as the first volume of a postmodern epic. It is considered as one of the most important anti-utopian works of the 21st century as well as one of the greatest works of Greek literature of all time.