Vroege Recensenten

Called “the best poet of our age” by the French poet Louis Aragon, Yiannis Ritsos became a member of the National Liberation Front during the Axis occupation of Greece. In 1967, he was arrested by the Greek military junta and sent to a prison camp in Gyaros, where the majority of these poems were composed. Despite being plagued by political persecution, tuberculosis, and family misfortune, Ritsos’s poetry is full of wisdom and compassion, devoid of anger and recrimination. These poems celebrate the life, toil, and dignity of the common man in direct and unadorned language. It is a moving account of the poet's time in exile; here we find subtle nuances, in which everyday events hide much that is threatening, oppressive, and spiritually vacuous--but the poems also provide lyrical and idyllic interludes, along with cunning re-creations of Greek mythology. These poems justify Ritsos's reputation as one of the most honored in Greece's modern history.