Tasos Leivaditis' Triptych: Battle at the Edge of the Night, This Star Is for All of Us, The Wind at the Crossroads of the World
By (Author) N.N. Trakakis
Anthem Press
Anthem Press
10th May 2022
United Kingdom
Professional and Scholarly
Non Fiction
889.134
Paperback
110
Width 153mm, Height 229mm, Spine 26mm
454g
Collected here are the three poetry books with which one of Greeces finest writers, Tasos Leivaditis, made his literary debut in 1952-53. Greece was at this time emerging out of the devastating destruction of World War II and the subsequent civil war (1946-49). Leivaditis, on the side of the defeated leftists in the civil conflict, paid for his political affiliation by being exiled to concentration camps on various islands for more than three years. Upon his release in 1951, he was to publish in quick succession three remarkable volumes of poetry which draw upon his experiences of violence and persecution, but which are framed by a broader commitment to justice and freedom, love and peace. The three books were immediate successes, and continue to be widely read and discussed in Greece today. Now, for the first time, they are made available to an English-reading audience, who are sure to find in the depth and intensity of Leivaditis verses a compelling witness not only to past terrors and tragedies but also to the irrepressible desire to vindicate life and love, because this star is for all of us.
N. N. Trakakis is from Melbourne, Australia, where he teaches philosophy and writes and translates poetry. His translation of Tasos Leivaditis Autumn Manuscripts(2020) was the joint winner of the 2021 New South Wales Premiers Translation Prize.