A roar of grief and anger rose in the city, echoing relentlessly, irreversibly, obliterating any other noise, rhythmically emphasizing the great lie. It lives, it lives, it lives! A roar that had nothing human.

It did not rise from human beings, creatures with two hands and two feet and their own consciousness. It rose from a monstrous and irrational beast, the crowd, the octopus that at noon, covered by clenched fists, contorted faces, clenched mouths, had flooded the Mitropoleos Square, then spread its tentacles to the surrounding streets, blocking them, engulfing them with its merciless lava that, in its impetuous flood, swallows every obstacle, deafening them with its it lives, it lives, it lives.

Oriana Fallaci, companion of Alekos Panagoulis during the last years of his life, publishes One Man in July 1979 in Italy, three years after his unexpected death at the age of 36. The book becomes a worldwide success, translated into more than twenty languages. "The one I loved had died and I had started writing a novel that would give meaning to the tragedy," Fallaci writes. 

In an interview, she declares: "Reading Propos, I saw that Panagoulis' story corresponded to the structure of a fairy tale: The initiation, the period of great trial, the return to the village, the final challenge, the apotheosis or death." And she adds: "I never say he was a hero - of course he was a hero, but I find it limiting to say so - he was first and foremost and above all a poet, an artist, and his heroism was a result of his poetry."