By Antonis Samarakis
About the author:
Antonis Samarakis, (1919—2003) Greek writer, was born in Athens and studied law at Athens Uy. A civil rvant in the labour ministry, he resigned in 1936, when General Metaxas impod a fascist-style dictatorship on Greece, but resumed his post in 1945. During the German occupation, he joined National Solidarity, a precursor of the maiwiance anization, the National Liberation Front. From an early age, he wrote poetry for literary magazines and anthologies. But in the 1950s, he made the decisive turn to pro fi, publishing his first colle of short stories, Hope Wanted in 1954. Hid masterpiece, The Flaw (1969) was eerily prophetic of the military dictatorship that was shortly to be established in his native land.
Unusually freek writer, Samarakis did not generally focus on issues arising from his try’s troubled 20th-tury history, or on the quenodernity for the fabric of Greek society. His themes, which found a receptive readership particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, were the helplessness of the ordinary person in the face of growing state power, the hreat, the loss of ideas, public corruption and the alienation of the individual in an ung, er society. Translations of his works into more than 30 languages, as well as the stage and s adaptations, attest to his ability to address issues of on humanity.
The protagonists of his short stories are ordinary people fag cris in their lives and beliefs- a widing up a ptive child in slum ditions, a priest tending a dying man, a soldier uo kill the enemy with whom he feels a on bond, a man who eks tain his childhood innoce by buying the hou in which he spent his early years. Their situatioo a shattering of hopes and ideals or to a new affirmation of human values. Samarakis’ first novel, Alarm Signal, (1959) and d colle of short stories, I Refu (1961) which woate prize for short stories, developed the same themes and further established his reputations, enabling him tn from the civil rvi 1963 ae himlf to fulltime writing.
As in much of Samarakis’ work, the characters are anonymous, the style fragmented and plain, sparing in description, but racy, with ued twists and an often caustic humor. His protagonists’ agoates of mind are depicted with frequeitions of words and phras, often tending to stream of sciousness.
By Antonis Samarakis
About the author:
Antonis Samarakis, (1919—2003) Greek writer, was born in Athens and studied law at Athens Uy. A civil rvant in the labour ministry, he resigned in 1936, when General Metaxas impod a fascist-style dictatorship on Greece, but resumed his post in 1945. During the German occupation, he joined National Solidarity, a precursor of the maiwiance anization, the National Liberation Front. From an early age, he wrote poetry for literary magazines and anthologies. But in the 1950s, he made the decisive turn to pro fi, publishing his first colle of short stories, Hope Wanted in 1954. Hid masterpiece, The Flaw (1969) was eerily prophetic of the military dictatorship that was shortly to be established in his native land.