Greek Literature of the 20th Century Quiz

Answer: Antonis Samarakis

"The Flaw" (To Lathos) by Antonis Samarakis is a disturbing, allegorical novel set in an unnamed totalitarian state, where a secret police interrogator hunts an elusive resistance member. As the psychological interrogation unfolds, certainty, logic, and authority begin to deteriorate, revealing a critical "flaw" in the system's faith in absolute control and rationality.
Through the book's suspense and darkness, Samarakis explores the basic structure of freedom, human dignity, fear, and moral responsibility, ultimately affirming the unpredictable power of the human conscience against oppressive regimes.
Antonis Samarakis (1919-2003) was a major Greek prose writer of the post-World War II generation. He studied law at the University of Athens and worked for many years at the Ministry of Labour. During the Nazi occupation of Greece, he joined the resistance; in 1944, he was arrested and condemned to death but managed to escape.
His literary work is known for its humanistic critique of issues of totalitarianism, social alienation, and the loss of individual freedom.

Answer: Dido Sotiriou

Dido Sotiriou's "Farewell Anatolia" (Matomena Homata) is a powerful historical novel that recounts the destruction of the Hellenism of Asia Minor in 1922. In the book, Manolis Axiotis, a Greek from Anatolia, traces his life before and during the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922), from the peaceful coexistence of Greeks and Turks to the brutality of war, and finally, the forced displacement of populations.
Sotiriou's strong humanistic voice condemns nationalism and violence, and emphasizes the shared suffering of ordinary people on both sides while preserving the memory of a lost homeland.
Dido Sotiriou was a Greek writer and author, born in Asia Minor in 1909. She evacuated to Piraeus as a refugee of the Smyrna Catastrophe in 1922 and studied French language and literature in Athens and Paris. During the dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas and the German Occupation of Greece (1940-1944), she became a member of the Resistance and the Communist Party. Her novels examine the Asia Minor Catastrophe, the German Occupation years, and the Greek Civil War that followed. She died in Athens in 2004.

Answer: Rhea Galanaki

In the historical novel "The Life of Ismail Ferik Pasha", a 19th-century Cretan boy is captured during an Ottoman suppression of a revolt. He is taken to Egypt, converted to Islam, and rises to become a respected military commander in the Egyptian-Ottoman hierarchy.
Decades later, he is sent back to Crete to help suppress a Cretan uprising, where he's confronted with the deep personal conflict of fighting against his homeland and his Greek brother, who escaped capture and became involved in the independence movement.
Rhea Galanaki masterfully weaves a web of divided loyalties, issues of identity, and the psychological burden of history.

Rhea Galanaki is a prominent Greek writer born in 1947 in Heraklion, Crete. She studied History and Archaeology at the University of Athens and has published numerous novels, short stories, essays, and poems, which often deal with historical and existential themes, concerning identity, memory, and cultural conflict.

Answer: Angelos Terzakis

The historical novel "Princess Isabeau" is probably the most popular novel by author Angelos Terzakis. It refers to the life of Medieval Greece during the Frankish period, specifically, the revolt of Greek and Slavic peasants in 1293, which led to the occupation of the Frankish castle of Kalamata.
The central story of the book is the love between Isabelle of Villehardouin (1260/1263 - 1312), the reigning Princess of Achaea, daughter of William Villehardouin, and the leader of the uprising, Nikephoros Sgouros.
Angelos Terzakis (1907-1979) was a well-known Greek writer of the so-called "1930s Generation", writers who became prominent during the interwar period.

Answer: Costas Taktsis

"The Third Wedding" (To Trito Stefani) by Kostas Taktsis is one of the most important examples of modern Greek literature. The book brilliantly illustrates the daily life in Greece during the interwar period, the German Occupation, and the Civil War as seen by two women, Nina and Hecuba. The novel, using a double first-person narration or two monologues, recounts their lives and their relationships with their families and their surroundings, the love stories and the marriages, and their ability to survive in dire circumstances.
Kostas Taktsis was born on October 8, 1927, in Thessaloniki and grew up in Athens. In 1962, he published "The Third Wedding", the work that established him as an important prose writer of the post-war generation. In addition to "The Third Wedding", he wrote poetry collections and short stories.
His life ended violently in 1988 when he was found murdered in his home.

Answer: Alexandros Papadiamantis

"The Murderess" (Fonissa) by Alexandros Papadiamantis is a powerful social novel set on the Aegean island of Skiathos that tells the haunting story of Hadoula (Frangoyannou), an elderly widow who commits femicide driven by a distorted sense of "mercy."
After accidentally killing her newborn granddaughter while trying to quiet her crying, Hadoula becomes convinced that sparing young girls from a life of suffering and hardship in a highly patriarchal Greek environment is a kindness.
Gradually, she embarks on a tragic and obsessive path, committing multiple murders of little girls in her community. The novel explores her troubled psychological state, the societal views on women, and the moral ambiguity of evil disguised as compassion against the stifling backdrop of rural island life.

Alexandros Papadiamantis ( 1851 - 1911) was one of the most important figures in modern Greek literature, often celebrated as the father of the modern Greek short story. He supported himself by writing literature and articles and essays for newspapers and magazines. He never married and led a modest, devout life deeply connected to the Greek Orthodox tradition.
His idiosyncratic writing, a rich combination of the academic "Katharevousa" language and the local island dialect, vividly portrays Greek island life, folklore and traditions, ethical issues, and the human psyche.

Answer: M. Karagatsis

"The Great Chimera" by M. Karagatsis is a lyrical novel set in the early twentieth century. It follows Marina, a young French woman eager to escape her provincial upbringing and troubled past. After falling in love with a Greek sea captain, she marries him and moves with him to the Aegean island of Syros.
There, initially enchanted by the beauty of her surroundings and fascinated by her husband's intellectual brother, she aspires to embrace Greek culture and her classical education. However, when disaster strikes her husband's shipping business, the stability of her new life unravels, and Marina's world descends into a turbulent cycle of passion, adultery, disillusionment, and death.

M. Karagatsis was the pen name of Dimitrios Rodopoulos (1908-1960), a major Greek novelist and key figure of the "Generation of the '30s", a group of writers who introduced literary modernism to Greece.
Karagatsis studied law in Grenoble and at the University of Athens but turned to a literary career, becoming known for his bold prose, psychological profundity, and exploration of human passions and tensions.
"The Great Chimera" stands out as one of his most celebrated works.

Answer: Vassilis Vassilikos

"Z" by Vassilis Vassilikos is a landmark political novel based on a real event, namely the assassination of Greek left-wing politician Grigoris Lambrakis in Thessaloniki in 1963.
Using a combination of literary storytelling and documentary-style detail, the narrative follows the organization of the assault, the murder itself, and the subsequent investigation that exposed deep connections between the perpetrators and members of the state, the police, and political powers.
The title "Z" refers to the Greek word "zei" ("he lives"), a slogan that became an emblem of resistance and remembrance following Lambrakis's death.
In 1969, celebrated Greek-French director Costas Gavras adapted the book into a movie that won the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award.

Vassilis Vassilikos was born in 1934, in Kavala, Greece.
A prolific author and diplomat, he studied law and television directing and went on to publish over 100 books, including novels, plays, short stories, and poetry. "Z", his best-known work, has been translated into more than 30 languages.
During the Greek military junta (1967-1974), he was in exile in Europe and the USA. Later in life, he served as Greece's ambassador to UNESCO and was active in politics, including as a member of the Greek Parliament.
He passed away in November 2023.

Answer: Maria Iordanidou

"Loxandra" is a nostalgic historical novel set in Constantinople (Istanbul) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, before World War I. It blends real and fictional characters to recreate daily life among the Greek community of the city, seen through the eyes of the spirited and generous heroine Loxandra, based on the author's own grandmother. Describing feasts, family events, traditions, and the everyday bustle of markets and homes, the novel offers a rich portrait of a once-vibrant world balancing between East and West. It captures customs, tastes, moods, and the fleeting happiness before the devastating storms of modern history.

Greek novelist Maria Kriezi-Iordanidou was born in 1897 in Constantinople (Istanbul) and died in 1989 in Athens. She belonged to the generation of interwar Greek writers and became widely known for "Loxandra", which she wrote in 1962 at the age of 65, and which helped establish her reputation as a beloved chronicler of Greek social life in the late Ottoman period.

Answer: Nikos Kazantzakis

"Report to Greco" is not a novel in the classical sense, but a philosophical autobiographical exertion which Nikos Kazantzakis writes as if he were giving his life's closing report to El Greco, the painter, whom he considers his spiritual ancestor.
The work follows the author's life from childhood to maturity, focusing not so much on the events, but on his inner struggles with ideas, beliefs, and doubts as he describes his childhood in Crete, his studies and travels in Europe, his spiritual quests about God, freedom, duty, human nature, and the constant conflict between matter and spirit.
"Report to Greco" centers on man's agonizing effort to overcome his limits and give meaning to his life through struggle.
Nikos Kazantzakis was born in Crete in 1883 and died in Germany in 1957. He was one of the most important Greek writers and thinkers of the 20th century. He studied law in Athens and philosophy in Paris. Throughout his life, he traveled extensively across Europe and Asia, which profoundly influenced his perceptions of humanity, religion, and freedom. Kazantzakis wrote novels, plays, poems, and philosophical works, with "Zorba the Greek", "Christ Recrucified", and "Report to Greco" being among his most famous books.