Modern Greek literature was born with the independent state, but its roots are older: in the folk poetry of the klephtic songs and in the literature of Venetian Crete, which in the 17th century produced Vitsentzos Kornaros's Erotokritos, a long love poem Cretans still recite by heart.
The language question
For over a century writers were divided between katharevousa, a "purified", archaising language used by the state, and demotic, the language people spoke. Poets almost all chose demotic, which became the official language in 1976. See the history of the Greek language.
Main authors
| Author | Dates | Works to know |
|---|---|---|
| Dionysios Solomos | 1798-1857 | Hymn to Liberty (national anthem), The Free Besieged |
| Andreas Kalvos | 1792-1869 | Odes, patriotic poetry |
| Kostis Palamas | 1859-1943 | The Twelve Lays of the Gypsy |
| Constantine Cavafy | 1863-1933 | Ithaca, Waiting for the Barbarians, The City |
| Nikos Kazantzakis | 1883-1957 | Zorba the Greek, Christ Recrucified, Freedom or Death, Report to Greco |
| Stratis Myrivilis | 1890-1969 | Life in the Tomb, on the First World War |
| Giorgos Seferis | 1900-1971 | Mythistorema, Logbook (Nobel 1963) |
| Yannis Ritsos | 1909-1990 | Epitaphios, Moonlight Sonata, Romiosini |
| Odysseas Elytis | 1911-1996 | Axion Esti, Sun the First (Nobel 1979) |
| Vassilis Vassilikos | 1934-2023 | Z, filmed by Costa-Gavras |
| Petros Markaris | 1937 | Crime novels featuring Inspector Kostas Charitos, set in Athens |
Cavafy, the poet of Alexandria
Constantine Cavafy spent almost his whole life in Alexandria, working as a government clerk. He published little in his lifetime, handing poems out to friends. His short, ironic poems speak of forgotten historical figures of the Hellenistic and Byzantine ages, of desire and memory. Ithaca urges us to enjoy the journey more than the goal; Waiting for the Barbarians describes a city awaiting an enemy who never comes. He is now the most translated modern Greek poet in the world.
Kazantzakis and Zorba
The Cretan Nikos Kazantzakis was a writer, philosopher and restless traveller. Zorba the Greek (1946), the story of an intellectual who learns how to live from a passionate miner, became world-famous through the 1964 film with Anthony Quinn and Theodorakis's music. The Last Temptation of Christ was condemned by the Church and inspired Martin Scorsese's film. His tomb in Heraklion bears the words: "I hope for nothing, I fear nothing, I am free".
The Generation of the Thirties
In the 1930s a group of poets and writers renewed Greek literature by joining tradition and European modernism. Giorgos Seferis, a diplomat, wrote spare, melancholy poetry about Greece's fate; Odysseas Elytis celebrated the light, sea and islands of the Aegean. Both won the Nobel prize. Yannis Ritsos, a left-wing poet, was repeatedly exiled to prison islands; many of his poems were set to music by Theodorakis.
Reading today
Contemporary authors available in translation include Petros Markaris, whose crime novels chart the crisis in Athens, Alki Zei, a children's author, Ioanna Karystiani, Christos Ikonomou and Vassilis Alexakis. To approach the poetry, anthologies of Cavafy, Seferis and Elytis are the best starting point.
See also famous Greeks and ancient Greek literature.