Authors Archives - Aiora Press

Portrait photo of Dionysis Savvopoulos, credits: lifemagazine

Dionysis Savvopoulos April 17, 2024 – Posted in: Authors

One of Greece’s foremost singer-songwriters, Dionysis Savvopoulos (1944 –) was born in Thessaloniki. He studied law at the University of Thessaloniki but did not complete his studies. In 1967, he was imprisoned and tortured by the Greek military junta for his political views. He has released fourteen studio albums of his own compositions and a further six albums of live recordings from his concerts and shows. He has also written music for theatre and film…

Kostas Karyotakis January 18, 2024 – Posted in: Authors

The Greek poet Kostas Karyotakis (1896–1928) studied law, but took a job as a civil servant and was posted across Greece for work he found tedious and depressing, a fact reflected in the bitter, ironic tone of many of his poems. He published three books of his own poetry and, in addition, translations of poetry —notably by Heinrich Heine, Charles Baudelaire and Paul Verlaine. His work embodies a turning point in Greek poetry, though his…

Aristotle June 1, 2023 – Posted in: Authors

ARISTOTLE was born in the village of Stagira in northern Greece, in 384 BCE. At seventeen he moved to Athens and was a devoted pupil of Plato for twenty years. Then, he was summoned by King Philip of Macedon to tutor his son Alexander, who later became known as Alexander the Great. Upon Aristotle ’ s return to Athens, he started his own school, the Lyceum. He lectured there for twelve years and is believed to have…

Plato April 6, 2023 – Posted in: Authors

Plato (427–347 BCE) came from a wealthy, aristocratic Athenian family and, at twenty, became a follower of Socrates. He left Athens in 399 BCE on the death of Socrates and, following a sojourn in Megara, travelled to Egypt, Italy and Sicily. He returned to Athens in 387 BCE and founded his own school, the Academy. Lasting a millennium, it is considered the first university of the Western world. Plato ’s entire body of work has survived…

Stratis Doukas October 11, 2022 – Posted in: Authors

Stratis Doukas was born in 1895 on Moschonisi island,off the Asia Minor coast, and settled in Greece as a refugee after the Greek–Turkish war (1919–22). He served as a soldier in the Greek army in the First world war and in the ill-fated Asia Minor campaign. A Prisoner of War’s Story, published in 1929, established his reputation as an innovative writer of a new unadorned first-person narrative style. His writing encompasses lyrical prose, arts journalism…

Epicurus April 6, 2022 – Posted in: Authors

Epicurus was born in 341 BCE and was a pupil of the Platonist Pamphilus of Samos, and the Democritean philosopher Nausiphanes of Teos. He began to teach when he was thirty-two, first in Mitylene on Lesbos and then in Lampsacus on the nearby mainland. In 306 BCE he moved to Athens with his loyal disciples; he purchased a property with a garden and established his school there. The Garden, as the school came to be…

Stelios Kouloglou July 8, 2021 – Posted in: Authors

Stelios Kouloglou is a writer, journalist and director. He is the author of several books, including novels, memoirs and political history. He was a correspondent in Paris and Moscow during the perestroika era and, from 1992 to 1995, covered the war in the former Yugoslavia. His TV show, Reportage without Frontiers, for which he was editor-in-chief and presenter, was described as ‘the symbol of investigative journalism in Greece’. In 2008 he founded tvxs.gr, Greece’s first…

Margarita Liberaki July 2, 2021 – Posted in: Authors

Margarita Liberaki (1919–2001) entered onto the literary stage at a young age. Her first novel, The Trees, appeared in 1945, when she was still in her mid-twenties, and was followed shortly after by the acclaimed Straw Hats (published in English as Three Summers). Ιn 1946 she moved to Paris, where she wrote The Other Alexander. The book was first published in 1950 in Greek, followed by English and French editions which met with immediate success.…

Nikos Engonopoulos May 15, 2020 – Posted in: Authors

Nikos Engonopoulos (1907-1985) was born in Athens with family roots in Constantinople on his father’s side and in Hydra on his mother’s side. In 1914, following the outbreak of the First World War, his family moved to Constantinople where he attended a private school. He continued his education in Paris as a boarder at high school from 1919 to 1927. After returning to Athens and completing his national service, he enrolled in the School of…

Emmanuel Roïdes November 27, 2019 – Posted in: Authors

Emmanuel Roïdes (1836-1904) was born into a wealthy family on the Greek island of Syros, but spent much of his childhood and early life in Europe. In 1841, his family moved to Genoa, where he lived through the revolution of 1848. He returned to Syros in 1849 and completed his schooling there, before leaving once again to pursue his university studies in history, literature and philosophy first in Germany and later in Romania. From 1864,…