Authors Archives - Page 3 of 3

Georgios Vizyenos June 5, 2019 – Posted in: Authors

Georgios 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…

George Seferis – Posted in: Authors

George 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…

Epictetus – Posted in: Authors

Epictetus (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…

C.P. Cavafy May 31, 2019 – Posted in: Authors

Constantine P. Cavafy was born in Alexandria in 1863 and died there on the morning of his 70th birthday in 1933. He worked as an employee in the Irrigation Service at the Ministry of Public Works in Alexandria and was a leading figure in the literary life of the city. Surprisingly, he chose not to publish any collected edition of his poems during his lifetime, but preferred to circulate small privately printed collections among his…

Antonis Samarakis – Posted in: Authors

Antonis Samarakis was born in Athens in 1919. For decades he worked as a civil servant at the Ministry of Labour, temporarily resigning during the dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas (1936-40), and during the Second World War he was captured by Nazis and narrowly escaped a death sentence. He published his first collection of short stories, Hope Wanted, in 1954, and his collection I Refuse won the Greek State Prize for the Short Story. Samarakis has…

Andreas Laskaratos May 30, 2019 – Posted in: Authors

Andreas Laskaratos was born in Lixouri, on the Greek island of Cephalonia, in 1811, at a time when the Ionian Islands were under British rule. Brought up in a wealthy aristocratic family of land-owners, he studied law in Paris and Pisa, but only worked as a lawyer for four years. He published poetry and prose but became more well known as a satirist — his satiric caricatures and parodies are considered unique in modern Greek…

Alexandros Rizos Rangavis May 24, 2019 – Posted in: Authors

Alexandros Rizos Rangavis (1809–1892) was a Greek man of letters, poet and statesman. Born in Constantinople in 1809 to a Greek Phanariot family, he was raised in Bucharest and Odessa, and attended military school in Munich. Following his return to Greece, Rangavis served at the Ministry of Education, helped organize the founding of the first university of modern Greece in 1834 and was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1856. Rangavis is the author of…

Alexandros Papadiamandis May 23, 2019 – Posted in: Authors

Alexandros Papadiamandis (1851–1911) was born and grew up on the Aegean island of Skiathos, where he also spent the last years of his life. Though his thoughts were ever on Skiathos and its inhabitants, he lived most of his adult life in Athens and earned a basic living by translating foreign authors and writing his own stories for newspapers and periodicals. His simple, reclusive and pious life earned him the title of ‘kosmokalόyeros’ (lay monk).…