Bøger af Odysseus Elytis

A selection from the work of one of modern Greece's poets. It is drawn from various periods of his career and traces his development from early surrealism, in which he transforms French influence into a distinct personal voice and mythology, through the dramatic style of "The Axion Esti" with its blend of spirituality and earthiness.

When Odysseus Elytis was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Swedish Academy's citation singled out "The Axion Esti", first published in 1959, as 'one of twentieth-century literature's concentrated and richly faceted poems.'

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.

The Axion Esti is probably the most widely read volume of verse to have appeared in Greece since World War II and remains a classic today. Those who follow the music of Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis have been especially drawn to Odysseus Elytis's work, his prose is widely considered a mirror to the revolutionary music of Theodorakis.