Today’s Quotation is care of Yannis Ritsos. Listen in! Subscribe to Quotomania on quotomania.com or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!

Yannis Ritsos (1909-1990), born in Monemvasia, lost his mother and an older brother to tuberculosis at an early age, then contracted the disease himself and spent years in and out of sanatoriums. His first poems, published in the 1930s, were hailed with enthusiasm by Kostis Palamas. He fought in the Greek Resistance during the Axis occupation of Greece, sided with the Communists in the Greek Civil War, and subsequently spent years in prison and in detention camps. He was imprisoned again during the dictatorship of 1967-1974. One of the most prolific Greek poets, Ritsos wrote over a hundred volumes of poetry, was broadly translated, and was nominated seven times for the Nobel Prize. He was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize in 1976 and the Order of the October Revolution in 1977.

From The Greek Poets: Homer to the Present.

For more information about Yannis Ritsos:

The Greek Poets: https://www.amazon.com/Greek-Poets-Homer-Present/dp/0393060837

Yannis Ritsos: Repetitions, Testimonies, Parentheses: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691019086/yannis-ritsos

“Yannis Ritsos”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/yannis-ritsos

“Yannis Ritsos, a Greek Poet, 81; Wrote Verse Inspired by Politics”: https://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/14/obituaries/yannis-ritsos-a-greek-poet-81-wrote-verse-inspired-by-politics.html

“Interview with Edmund Keeley”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkW9OuyjarI