Read the Modern Greek Classics
The Greek literature of the last two centuries occupies a particular place within the totality of European literature and has much to offer not only to the Greek-speaking readers but, through translation, to the rest of Europe and the world. We need, simply, to get to know it better.
Roderick Beaton
An Introduction to Modern Greek Literature
English edition  | The Notary A wealthy count on his deathbed, his libertine nephew, an upstanding young clerk, and a scheming notary who stops at nothing to protect his daughter make The Notary an iconic tale of suspense and intrigue, love and murder. The classic work of Alexandros Rangavis, The Notary, a mystery set on the island of Cephalonia on the eve of the Greek Revolution of 1821, is Modern Greek literature’s contribution to the tradition of early crime fiction, alongside E.T.A. Hoffman, Edgar Allan Poe and Wilkie Collins. |
Italian edition  | Note di poetica et di morale Le ventisette Note di poetica e di morale contenute nel presente volume lumeggiano in modo inedito l'indissolubile legame tra l'arte e l'amore che segna la personalità di Konstantinos Kavafis. La traduzione è corredata dal testo originale greco a fronte. |
French edition  | Le peintre d'Aphrodite La nouvelle de Théotokis renvoie le lecteur d’aujourd’hui, à travers un détour par le passé lointain de la Grèce, au sujet toujours actuel du choix entre l’action pour changer une société imparfaite et le refuge dans le monde imaginaire et intemporel de l’art et des idées. |
German edition  | Die einzige Reise seines Lebens In Georgios Vizyinos' heiter-melancholischen Erzählung „Die einzige Reise seines Lebens“ aus dem Jahr 1884 wird der junge Schneiderlehrling Jorgos aus der Hauptstadt des Osmanischen Reiches, Konstantinopel, in sein Heimatstädtchen gerufen, weil sein Großvater im Sterben liegen soll. Doch als Jorgos zu Hause eintrifft, findet er den Großvater höchst lebendig auf einer felsigen Anhöhe hinter dem Dorf sitzend vor. Die beiden beginnen ein Gespräch über die vielen Reisen des Großvaters, das für Jorgos mehrere Überraschungen bereithält. |
French edition  | Notes de poétique et de morale Introduites par Georges P. Savidis, ce petit volume contient vingt-sept réflexions intimes du poète néo-alexandrin Constantin Cavafis sur son art et son orientation amoureuse. Traduites pour la première fois dans leur intérgralité, ces Notes de poétique et de morale sont présentées en regard de l’original grec. |
Italian edition  | L'assassina L’anziana Frangojannù si guadagna da vivere come esperta di pozioni medicamentose nell’isola egea di Skiathos, all'inizio del Novecento. Profonda conoscitrice del destino crudele che attende le donne nella comunità tradizionale della sua isola, non esita a levare un vibrante atto d'accusa contro le convenzioni sociali e contro Dio stesso, per amore della libertà e della dignità individuale. |
French edition  | Georges Séféris, Quelques points de la tradition grecque moderne Georges Séféris, un poète grec parmi les plus importants, a renouvelé la poésie néohellénique du point de vue de l'inspiration, de la sensibilité et des idées. Les deux discours prononcés à Stockholm à l'occasion de l'attribution du prix Nobel de Littérature en 1963, remarquablement actuels, présentent un intérêt extraordinaire pour ceux qui voudraient en savoir plus sur les idées du poète concernant la grécité, la tradition culturelle de son pays, et surtout sa langue. |
English edition  | Odysseus Elytis, In the Name of Luminosity and Transparency The poetry of Odysseus Elytis owes as much to the ancients and Byzantium, as to the surrealists of the 1930s and the architecture of the Cyclades, bringing romantic modernism and structural experimentation to Greece. Collected here are the two speeches Elytis gave on his acceptance of the 1979 Nobel Prize for Literature, which are still strikingly relevant today. He addresses a hypertrophic and atrophic Europe in moral chaos, with as many coexisting values as languages-and to this he offers the "common language" that is found in poetry, in art, and in their base materials of sense, aesthetic, intuition. Ultimately, his is a powerful ode to beauty amid utilitarianism, and the need for poetry as "the art of approaching that which surpasses us" and "puts us at the threshold of the deepest truth". |
Italian edition  | Un poeta greco a Stoccolma Il premio Nobel per la Letteratura 1963 è stato assegnato a Ghiorgos Seferis «per la sua scrittura essenzialmente lirica, ispirata a un profondo senso del mondo greco e della sua cultura». |
English edition  | George Seferis, Novel and Other Poems Bilingual edition |
English edition  | Nikiforos Vrettakos - Selected Poems Vrettakos’s poems are firmly rooted in the Greek landscape and coloured by the Greek light, yet their themes and sentiment are ecumenical. His garden, his own heart, are but a microcosm of the entire world, of the whole of humanity, and both contain divine messages that the lens of poetry can help us to perceive. |
English edition  | Reflections Andreas Laskaratos (1811-1901), a prominent figure in modern Greek letters, was a writer and poet, a social thinker and, in many ways, a controversialist. A life-long enemy of hypocrisy wherever he found it, on many occasions he turned against politicians, while he ceaselessly fought against corruption and religious prejudice and fanaticism. |
French edition  | Choix de poèmes Le Cavàfis des poèmes historiques, fasciné par la période hellénistique ou la Byzance médiévale, et le Cavàfis des poèmes amoureux, obsédé par la beauté masculine et les plaisirs de sa jeunesse, ne sont qu’un seul et même poète : le passé, qu’il soit lointain ou proche, reste pour lui éternellement présent ; et la ville où il vécut, Alexandrie, ne cesse de hanter son œuvre. |
French edition  | Une femme à la mer Bien qu’il ait passé l’essentiel de sa vie à Athènes, où il vécut chichement de la traduction littéraire d’écrivains surtout anglais et français, Alexandre Papadiamantis (1851-1911) a choisi Skiathos, son île natale, où il vécut jusqu’à vingt-trois ans et où il revint se retirer deux ans avant sa mort, pour cadre de la plupart de ses cent quatre-vingts nouvelles. |
English edition  | Moskov Selim “Moskov Selim” is set in Thrace, a corner of Europe where Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria meet. Vizyenos’ story evokes a time when Greeks and Turks could share each other’s joys and pains despite the hostile relations between their governments. Listening to the protagonist’s life story, the narrator of “Moskov Selim” discovers that this Turk is a kindred spirit, despite the gulf of nationality and religion that separates them. |
French edition  | Le péché de ma mère Georges Vizyinos (1849-1896) fait partie des plus grands auteurs grecs modernes. Et des plus aimés. Parallèlement à son œuvre poétique, il a laissé des textes en prose dont la qualité s’est encore bonifiée avec le temps. Aujourd’hui, on adapte ses nouvelles pour le théâtre ou le cinéma, on les commente, on s’en inspire, on les traduit et on les retraduit en langues étrangères… |
English edition  | C.P. Cavafy - Selected Poems Cavafy is by far the most translated and most well-known Greek poet internationally. His work exists in multiple translations in a wide range of languages and major 20th-century poets as diverse as Auden, Brecht, Brodsky, Durrell, Milosz and Montale have all paid tribute to Cavafy, either by writing poems “in the style of Cavafy”, or by openly admitting their debt to his poetry in their own work. |
English edition  | Fey Folk Generally recognized as one of the foremost Greek prose writers of the modern period, Alexandros Papadiamandis holds a special place in the history of modern Greek letters, but also in the heart of the ordinary Greek reader. |
English edition  | Thracian Tales Georgios Vizyenos (1849-1896) is one of Greece’s best-loved writers. His stories, written in 1883-4, are set in his native Thrace, a corner of Europe where Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey meet. |
English edition  | Rebetika “... [A] world of hash dens, junkies, brothels and songs wherein historical figures like Socrates and Xerxes occasionally make bizarre appearances among the trams and hookahs, and death is still called Charos, a corruption of Charon in ancient mythology.” |
Italian edition  | Psicologia d’un marito siriota Il matrimonio: paradiso o inferno? Tutto dipende da noi, da come ci poniamo davanti alle inevitabili discussioni, agli immancabili conflitti, alle bizze del coniuge. Un sereno sorriso, consapevole e distaccato al tempo stesso, un benevolo non prendere troppo sul serio gli altrui capricci. In queste pagine Roidis, nei panni dell’ex marito geloso, ci spiega come sia questione non tanto di saper stare al gioco, ma di riuscire a prendere il prossimo per il verso giusto, gentile consorte inclusa. Ossia con la giusta dose di ironia – e di autoironia. |
Italian edition  | L’unico viaggio della sua vita «La traduzione di Anna Zimbone risulta particolarmente pregevole, perché se da un lato segue con fedeltà le complesse movenze della elaborata prosa di Viziinοs, dall'altro propone felici soluzioni per rendere in una lingua italiana perspicua e nitida il suo raffinato e sontuoso lessico, con le geniali mescolanze di katharevusa severa e di vivaci idiomatismi vernacolari». Vincenzo Rotolo, Prof. Ordinario di Lingua e Letteratura Neogreca, Università di Palermo |
Italian edition  | Sogno sull'onda Un sogno d’estate, dominato dal mare, è quello del pastorello; un sogno d’inverno, dall’epilogo non lieto, quello del vecchio Barba-Gianni. Anche il giovane barcaiolo del secondo racconto si è cullato in un sogno che verrà crudelmente infranto. Elemento comune ai tre racconti è l’amore, che riesce a trasfigurare la dura e inesorabile realtà quotidiana e persuade i protagonisti a riconciliarsi con la propria sorte. |
Italian edition  | Le nozze di Stalachtì Theotokis nelle sue Storie ci presenta un mondo tradizionale, immobile, un mondo condizionato dalle necessità naturali, dentro il quale i sentimenti e gli impulsi si intrecciano e si sbrigliano con violenza. Sono drammi passionali nei quali il pathos dei protagonisti, teso senza interruzione fino alla catarsi, diviene la leva motrice dell'intreccio, mentre l’eros, il senso dell'onore, la diseguaglianza sociale determinano lo svolgersi dell’azione. Luogo, la piccola società agricola, chiusa e arretrata, della Corfù tra la fine dell’Ottocento e gli inizi del Novecento. |
German edition  | Der Kirchenscheue Mit einem Nachwort über „Griechen in Görlitz“ von Thomas Plaul Vor 30 Jahren, auf der verträumten Insel Skiathos, verliebte sich Kolias in Molota. Ihre Liebe wurde mit einem einzigen Kuss besiegelt. Dann wurde sie gezwungen, einen anderen zu heiraten, und er zog sich als Einsiedler in die Berge zurück. Dennoch brachte sie das Schicksal wieder zusammen... |
German edition  | Thanos Vlekas Mit einem Vorwort “Was sind heute nämlich die Gesetze und die Verfassung anderes als ein unentrinnbares Labyrinth von Behörden, die sich absichtlich vermehren?“ |
Russian edition  | Два рассказа с острова Скиафос Александрос Пападиамандис – замечательный греческий прозаик. |
Russian edition  | Национальный поэт Греции Национальный поэт Греции, один из основоположников новогреческой литературы, ее величайший лирик. |