hello,
I am alive

"The absence of a person is required, to truly appreciate their presence."

Author's
Note

Hello, I am Alive! was born here, in my study in Mariolata, with Mount Parnassus across the way, page after page, for a whole year.

hello, I am alive , a novel about presence in the age of algorithms, about two people who know each other only through a screen, and about how easily a person becomes an IP address, a last known location, a post.

— Panos Sakelis · Mariolata, Parnassus

Cover: hello, I am alive — Panos Sakelis
The Book

A location app. Two strangers. A river.

James McCormick is a solitary retired man in north London who walks along the banks of the Thames every Saturday. Vivi Filibert, a red-haired French woman from Le Havre, knows him only through a Facebook group for old films. When his phone suddenly stops transmitting — and hours later announces a strange new location — Vivi will make a sudden decision that takes her from the Atlantic coast to an empty house in Barnet, to a hospital bed at Saint Thomas, and to questions she never expected to ask.

A novel about digital presence and real absence, about the intimacy of strangers, and about the moment when technology reveals — without knowing it — that a person is still alive.

Genre
Novel
Year
2026
Length
14 chapters
Places
London · Le Havre · Paris · Liverpool
An Excerpt

The Moment He Didn't Notice

His gaze fell to his phone. Some message that had arrived mentioned a new app that broadcast your location across various social networks, provided the corresponding app existed in that particular space. Without thinking, he tapped to install it.

A young waiter brought his beer at that exact moment, and perhaps that was what made him immediately forget the phone and whatever he had done. But the app had installed itself — on his home computer, which was left on, as well as across every social network he was part of — and was recorded at once:

James McCormick is at the North Bank Restaurant.

from the chapter · A Walk Along the Thames

A question for you

If you disappeared for one day — who would notice first?

A relative? An algorithm? An unanswered message? I'd love to hear your thoughts. Reply directly to this newsletter. I read every letter personally, and some of your answers may find a place in one of our Between the Lines issue (always with your consent).

↩ Reply directly ·