Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Nikos Engonopoulos belongs to a little-known yet extremely active and influential group of Greek surrealist poets and was one of its most orthodox exponents. This volume, introduced by the translator, contains some sixty poems, including representative selections from each of his published collections and the whole of his long poem Bolivár.
Synopsis
Nikos Engonopoulos (1907-1985) was one of the most prominent representatives of Greek Surrealist poetry and painting. Closely associated with Andreas Embeirikos, the "patriarch" of Surrealism in Greece, and with Nicolas Calas, an influential figure of the European and American avant-garde, Engonopoulos developed highly experimental pictorial and poetic aesthetics. In both his paintings and poems, he engaged in a critical, often ironic dialogue with Greek history and cultural traditions and their ideological appropriations in established cultural and political discourses. Engonopoulos was arguably the keenest advocate of Surrealist black humor and irony in Greece. His overall approach to the Greek past, informed as it was by the socio-aesthetic principles of French Surrealism, constitutes one of the most ingenious and provocative cases of artistic mythogenesis in the European avant-garde.
This volume offers a collection of his most representative poems, including his long poem Bolivar, which was written in the winter of 1942-1943 and soon acquired the status of an emblematic act of resistance against the Nazis and their allies (Italians and Bulgarians), who had occupied Greece in 1941.
About the Author
David Connolly is Professor of Translation Studies at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki