Authors Archives - Page 3 of 3

Antonis Samarakis May 31, 2019 – 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).…