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In Selected Poems the art of poetry transforms sorrow into creation; it becomes that redeeming path which leads the poet and reader from decay to regeneration, from the space of sorrow to the glorious way of love and life.[…] Her poetry, explicitly erotic and passionate, defines her sensual relationship with the world, such a poet of passion she is, though over time Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke became more thoughtful, paying attention to memory and to the chthonian and heavenly sense of a world that never loses its primeval powers. Equally dedicated is her intensity when she deals with her place of birth with its fluidity and music that transcend her poetry thus making it timeless and eternal; Katerina’s poetry remains eternally dedicated to a natural element as well as to the beauty and the pain life creates, the committee decided unanimously when they awarded her with the highest prize of the Hellenic Letters.
Chrysa Nikolaki, Theologist, Poet, Writer, Literary critic
Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke was born in Athens, February 1939. Her work has been translated into more than ten languages and is included in numerous anthologies. She won the 1985 Greek National Poetry Award for the Greek version of Beings and Things on Their Own. She has translated from English and French as well as from the Russian works of Shakespeare, Mayakovski, and Pushkin. She’s the recipient of the first poetry award Prix Hensch of the City of Geneva, the National Literary Award of Greece, the Kostas Ouranis poetry Award and in 2014 she was awarded the National Poetry Award for the whole of her literary accomplishment.
Manolis Aligizakis is a Cretan-Canadian poet and author. He was recently appointed an honorary instructor and fellow of the International Arts Academy, and awarded a Master’s for the Arts in Literature. He emigrated to Vancouver in 1973, where he worked as an iron worker, train labourer, taxi driver, and stock broker, and studied English Literature at Simon Fraser University. He now lives in White Rock, where he spends his time writing, gardening, traveling, and heading Libros Libertad, an unorthodox and independent publishing company which he founded in 2006. His translation George Seferis: Collected Poems was shortlisted for the Greek National Literary Awards, the highest literary recognition of Greece. | |