Stratis Myrivilis, a Greek writer, is known for his novels and anti-war literature. He captured life in Greece during the early 20th century and was part of the Greek Generation of the 1930s. Despite his impact on Greek culture, he is not widely known outside of Greece. Only two of his books are available in translation.
Stratis Myrivilis (1892-1969) is one of the most influential Greek prose writers of the 20th century. He has written several gripping novels and worked for a variety of newspapers and other publications, capturing life in Greece during the first two-thirds of the twentieth century in his remarkable oeuvre. He was a well-known member of the Greek Generation of the 1930s, a group of writers generally regarded as having brought modernism to Greek literature.
Myrivilis was born in Lesbos in 1892 and spent her childhood in the village of Sykamnia. He went to Mytilene, the largest city on the island, for high school, and then moved to Athens to continue his university studies. He dropped out when war broke out in the Balkans and served in the military for the next ten years. When he returned to Lesbos after the war, he was as a staunch pacifist and, as a result, contributed a large body of work to Greek anti-war literature.
On Lesbos, Stratis Myrivilis worked as a journalist and writer, returning to Athens in 1930 to work in broadcast journalism. He was a member of the Athens Academy, which nominated him for the Nobel Prize in 1960. After World War II, he was elected president of the National Society of Greek Writers. In Greece, he is hailed as the most important writer of the twentieth century.
Literary scholars often claim that Stratis Myrivilis captured the tumultuous early part of the twentieth century in Greek with brilliance, sensitivity and grace. His novels are considered among the finest prose of the twentieth century and speak out against war, especially civil war. Much of his work, including his most important novel, Life in the Tomb, is highly autobiographical and discusses his personal experiences on the battlefield. Life in the Tomb has been translated into 15 languages, including English, and is regarded by most critics as one of the most powerful anti-war novels of the twentieth century.
Despite his influence on literature, Stratis Myrivilis is not widely known outside Greece and parts of Europe, eclipsed by authors such as Nikos Kazantzakis and Konstantinos Cavafis. Given the enormous impact he had on Greek culture, this is very frustrating for scholars, who find it difficult to find his work.
Only two of Myrivilis’ other books are available in translation: The Mermaid Madonna (1959) and The Schoolmistress with the Golden Eyes (1964). Her other works include The Green Book (1934), the Blue Book (1939) and The Red Book (1952), collections of essays and speeches.
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