Nikos Gkatsos

Nikos Gkatsos was born in Chania, Frangovrysi, in Arcadia. He completed his secondary education in Tripoli and subsequently settled with his mother and sister in Athens, where he studied at the University’s Department of Philology. In 1935–1936, he travelled to the South of France and Paris. He made his literary debut in 1931 with the publication of the poem "Of Solitude” in the magazine “Nea Estia”, whilst at the same time he joined the circle of the magazine “Nea Grammata”, with which he also collaborated as a literary critic, an activity he pursued in other literary magazines in Athens. In 1943, he published “Amorgos”, a collection of poetry considered a landmark in the history of Greek surrealist poetry, which influenced his contemporaries and later poets. After “Amorgos”, however, he published no more than three poems in periodicals. In the post-war period, he collaborated with K.G. Katsimbalis’s magazine “Anglo-Hellenic Review” and with the National Radio Foundation. He was also involved in theatrical translation (Lorca, Strindberg, O’Neill, Lope de Vega, Tennessee Williams, etc.) for productions by the National Theatre, the Art Theatre and other Athenian theatre companies, and from the 1950s onwards with songwriting. His lyrics were set to music by Manos Hadjidakis, Mikis Theodorakis, Stavros Xarchakos and other Greek composers. He was honoured with the City of Athens Award for his life’s work (1987) and was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Barcelona for his contribution (through his translations) to the promotion of Spanish literature (1991). He died in Athens. In 1995, a Turkish translation of his poetic works by Heracles Millas was published in Istanbul. For further biographical details on Nikos Gatsos, see “Gatsos, Nikos” in the “World Biographical Dictionary”, vol. 3, Athens, Athens Publishing, 1985, Demosthenes Kourtovik, “Nikos Gatsos”, in “Post-war Greek writers: a guide”, Athens, Patakis, 1995, pp. 55–56, Alexis Ziras, “Nikos Gatsos”, in “Dictionary of Modern Greek Literature”, Athens, Patakis, 2007, pp. 403–404, and Filippos Mandilaras and Angeliki Passia, “Nikos Gatsos: Bibliography”, the magazine “Eli-Trochos”, issue 11, Winter 1996–1997, pp. 8–13.