Peter Mackridge (1946-2022) was Professor of Modern Greek at the University of Oxford. He published several books on modern Greek language and literature, including two co-authored grammars. His most recent translations are Thracian Tales by Georgios Vizyenos and a story by Alexandros Papadiamandis (both 2014), and The History of Western Philosophy in 100 Haiku by the 21st-century poet Haris Vlavianos (2015).
Continue readingPanagiotis Stavropoulos (b. 1962) is a painter and iconographer. He studied painting and engraving at the Gerrit Rietvelt Academy in Amsterdam, and has painted icons and frescoes in churches around Greece. From 1996 to 2014 he lived on the island of Tinos, where he focused mainly on sculpture. His work has been presented in solo exhibitions in Athens and Tinos. Panagiotis has also participated in several group exhibitions, and his artwork features on numerous covers…
Continue readingOdysseus Elytis (1911-1996) has been a leading figure in the “Generation of the 1930s”, whose poets, influenced by surrealism, renewed contemporary Greek poetry. During the post-war years he lived for long periods in France, where he associated with the pioneers of the world’s avant-garde (Reverdy, Tzara, Breton, Ungaretti, Matisse, Picasso, Giacometti). He published seventeen collections of poetry, translations from ancient Greek and modern European poets, and two volumes of prose. In 1979 he was awarded…
Continue readingNikiforos Vrettakos was born on January 1, 1912 in the village of Krokees near Sparta. In a literary career lasting some sixty years, he published over eighty-five collections of poetry, eight prose works, a long critical study of Nikos Kazantzakis and wrote innumerable articles and essays for periodicals and newspapers. In Greece, he received more awards than any other poet of his generation, including three State Prizes for Poetry. In 1987, he was elected to…
Continue readingMakis Tsitas was born in Yiannitsa in 1971. He studied Journalism in Thessaloniki and has worked in radio. He now lives in Athens, where he runs the online literary journal diastixo.gr. A prolific writer of children’s books, he has also written a collection of short stories, which was widely translated, as well as plays and song lyrics. God Is My Witness is his first novel. It was awarded the European Union Prize for Literature in…
Continue readingKatharine Butterworth (1931-2018) was the founder and director for 25 years of “Study in Greece”, an accredited college study program for juniors and seniors in Athens, based on contemporary Greek life, and as such the first of its kind.
Continue readingGeorgios Vizyenos was born in 1849 in the small town of Vizye (Vize in Turkish), to the north-west of Constantinople (Istanbul). His whole life was a struggle with family and personal tragedy. His father died when the boy was five years old; two of his sisters perished in early childhood; and one of his brothers died in mysterious circumstances. Despite these inauspicious beginnings, he studied in Germany and became one of the leading Greek poets…
Continue readingGeorge Seferiadis was born in Smyrna (now Izmir, Turkey) in 1900. Seferis is the name he adopted when he published his first book of poetry in 1931. After completing his schooling in Athens, Seferis studied Law at the Sorbonne, Paris. In 1926 he entered his country’s diplomatic service, embarking on a career that took in England, Albania, the Middle East, South Africa, and Cyprus, during some of the most turbulent years of the century. Seferis…
Continue readingEpictetus (ca 55 AD–135 AD) was a Greek-speaking Stoic philosopher. He was born a slave in the Greek city of Hierapolis, Phrygia (present day Pamukkale, Turkey) and, after receiving his freedom, lived and taught in Rome until an imperial edict banned all philosophers from the Italian peninsula. Epictetus then established a school of philosophy in Nicopolis in northwestern Greece. His teachings were written down and published by his pupil Arrian in the eight-volume Discourses and…
Continue readingDavid Connolly is Professor Emeritus of Translation Studies at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He has translated over 50 books with works by contemporary Greek writers. His translations have received awards in the USA, the UK and Greece.
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