Το πρώτο βραβείο μυθοπλασίας απένειμε στον Γιάννη Σμαραγδή ο υπουργός Πολιτισμού Μιχάλης Λιάπης.

Ο κ. Λιάπης τόνισε: «Ο ελληνικός κινηματογράφος βρίσκεται σ' ένα κρίσιμο σημείο. Καλείται να διευρύνει το ζωτικό του χώρο, να αξιοποιήσει με τον καλύτερο δυνατό τρόπο το δυναμικό το οποίο έχει, αλλά και τη δίψα του κοινού για ελληνικές παραγωγές» και σημείωσε πως «η πολιτεία στηρίζει τον ελληνικό κινηματογράφο και θεσμικά και οικονομικά».

Living in a poor area of the Australia with high unemployment and many other local problems, the 10 young men began the project as a means to fill their time up with a hobby - but now they are getting calls from all over Australia to see their performance.

The 'Chooky Dancers', as they are now being referred to, dance to the famous Greek beat wearing only a loin cloth and are barefoot.

Yiorgos Chouliaras has been invited to read from his work at the 30^th Anniversary Conference of the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) that is being organized from November 7 to 10 in conjunction with the University of Texas at Dallas. The Albanian-American poet and ALTA member Gjekë Marinaj will present the Greek poet and essayist and will also conduct an interview to be taped for the University’s literary archives.

The 30^th ALTA Conference (Celebrating the Past/Imagining the Future) is considered a milestone event in the Association’s history, a time to re-imagine the role of translation in the world of arts and letters and to redefine its role as a paradigm for problem-solving and cross-cultural communication. Homero Aridjis (Mexico), Jose Manuel Prieto (Cuba), and Xiaobin Xu (China) are among those expected to read at the conference which is the largest gathering of its kind in North America of writers, translators, scholars, publishers, and others.

Ways to promote international literature in the United States, Ezra Pound as translator, and the field of translation studies are among themes to be discussed at the conference that also offers workshops, performances, and bilingual readings in French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Vietnamese, and other languages. For further information on the conference, sessions of which will be held at the Renaissance Hotel in Richardson / Dallas, Texas and at the University of Texas in Dallas, please contact Lindy Jolly (lindy.jolly@utdallas.edu, tel. 972-883-2093). Chouliaras is reading on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2:45 pm. To view a schedule, click here.

Yiorgos Chouliaras is the author of Roads of Ink and five previous volumes of poetry in Greek as well as numerous essays – in Greek and in English – on literature, cultural history, and international relations. Reviews of and translations from his work have been published in leading periodicals, including Agenda, Grand Street, Harvard Review, Modern Poetry in Translation, Ploughshares, Poetry, and World Literature Today.

Born in Thessaloniki and educated at Anatolia College, Reed College, and The Graduate Faculty, New School for Social Research, he worked in New York as a university lecturer, advisor to cultural institutions, correspondent, and press officer. He has served as Press Counselor at the Greek Embassy in Canada, in Athens during the Olympic Games, and in Boston, and is currently Press Counselor at the Greek Embassy in Washington, D.C. A founding editor of the influential Greek literary & arts reviews Tram and Hartis and an editor of literary and scholarly periodicals in the United States, he was the third writer from Greece, after Odysseus Elytis and George Savidis, to serve on the jury of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. An Emeritus Member of the Board of the Ottawa International Writers Festival, he was elected and served on the Executive Board of the Hellenic Authors’ Society as Vice President for international relations.

November 8, 2007       (202) 785-8430

OF OHIO

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Nikos Kazantzakis physically never visited the United States of America. Originally he did not want to, while other countries, China, Japan, India, were in his thoughts. In a letter dated 5th September 1922 from Berlin to a childhood friend, Rev. Emmanuel Papastephanou, living in Ohio, he wrote: «Unfortunately I never want to come to America. It has no attraction for me». Yet, only a few years later –two years, five years– he showed interest in America. He asked to be informed whether there were young people in America who could be organized in a joint effort for the education and for spiritual, economic, political and religious freedom.

He sought also at that time to be appointed as correspondent in Europe for any American newspaper and send dispatches about European political, economic and intellectual matters, covering also Soviet affairs. Kazantzakis had already from his youth a record in journalism and this he continued in the subsequent years. His five travel books are mainly based on dispatches to Athenian newspapers that had sent him as their envoy and correspondent in the respective countries abroad.

Later Kazantzakis’s stand vis-à-vis America changed. In 1943 he was invited by friends to visit the country and he consented. He wrote to the Greek journalist Panos Karavias in New York: «As you know, the spiritual, the almost physical need to get to know as large a part of the world as possible, is for me imperative and great». But the Second World War did not favor such trips and, on the other hand, the post-war political circumstances and obsessions did not allow it. The last two decades of the 74 years of his life are marked with the strong dream, coupled with cultural targets, to visit America in order to see and feel the panorama of the emerging New World. This actually matched the vastness of his ideology and his global conception of humanity.

Sixty years ago Kazantzakis expressed his vision for the creation of an Institute for Greek Education in the United States, to help the Greek emigrants keep their traditions and maintain bonds with their roots, their motherland. He also wanted them to become smoothly integrated into their new environment, as creative components of America, factors of progress. He wanted them to strive for their rights but also to perform their duties, their obligations, towards their new country. For this, he drew up, with his friend Pantelis Prevelakis, a detailed plan. To realize it, he needed a passport to travel to the United States. The Greek Government refused him the passport. This was one of the methods of the persecution against him.

The unfounded pretexts for this and other similar refusals, in the next year for example, were that he might make political speeches, this meaning communist speeches. In reality, Kazantzakis was not a communist. He wrote about himself that he was never afflicted by the disease of communism. Simply, in the Soviet revolution of October 1917 he aspired for social justice. His expectations failed early and his frustration was obvious. Once I heard an anecdote: Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man while communism is quite the opposite. This «quite the opposite», with much cruelty, was witnessed by Kazantzakis in the Soviet Union.

What Nikos Kazantzakis did not manage to do during his lifetime, is becoming a reality after his passing away, on the 50^th anniversary of his death. Today the international and global vision of Nikos Kazantzakis is put into effect. It becomes alive, through the announcement of the inauguration of the activities of the Hellenic Foundation for Culture in Washington DC. I do not underestimate in this respect the valuable work performed by the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation. But to-day’s event extends further and higher, since it is marked by two state institutions: The Library of Congress and the Embassy of Greece. Precisely 50 years ago, on a day like this, the 1^st of November 1957, Nikos Kazantzakis was laying in a coffin, kept in a refrigerator for the dead, in Athens. He had died on the 26^th of October in Germany, and was to be buried in his native island Crete on the 5^th of November. It was said that his death led to his immortality and I have the feeling that today, by fulfilling a supreme vision he cherished, we symbolically resurrect him.

Only once was Nikos Kazantzakis given the opportunity to really make a trip to America. But he missed it. For this, neither the Greek nor the American Government were to blame. After the end of the Second World War, in November 1945 he was appointed Minister (not a priest but a Secretary) without portfolio in the Greek Government. The Prime Minister, Themistocles Sophoulis, intended to send him to America, England and Mexico to plead the cause of Reconstruction of Greece from the catastrophy of the Second World War. Helen Samiou, his life-companion since 1924, was to accompany him. In order to have everything in order and not to travel unmarried, they performed their wedding on the 11^th of November 1945, after 21 years of living together out of wedlock. But many people wanted to take part in the mission and they exerted pressure on him, to that end. He writes to his Helen in November 1945:

«Beloved Lenotschka!

»Thousands of mondains [worldly people] are asking to go. I’m afraid the combination [of people] will be miserable unless the President steps in…

»Many people want to become members of the Academy… They want medals, awards, positions, missions, and they rush about burdening me with their hopes and desires. And I get worn out, because, as is my habit, I make their desires my own and when I don’t succeed, I consider it a personal misfortune.

»I have many things to write you, but I’m tired… It’s a heavy thing to have to live with human beings…»

The situation was unbearable and Kazantzakis resigned his ministerial post after six weeks in office. The trip to America was consequently lost. He wanted that trip, he wanted it so that he would be delivered, as he wrote. Besides, civil strife broke out in Greece and Kazantzakis had his own view of it in connection with the political involvement of America. He wrote to his friend Börje Knös in Stockholm: «Greece is sinking more and more into obscurity. The Americans, by confounding the soul and the dollar, will make big mistakes in Greece as well…»

He was in Paris at that time and he was, after a while, employed by UNESCO, on the 1^st of May of 1947 at a top post. He worked exhaustively. Nevertheless, even then, the dream of America tormented him. He wrote on the 7^th of July 1947 to his friend Prevelakis: «May God grant that our hopes may come true because my thoughts are always turned to America, – to see this land, also, and be delivered. This, too, is some kind of surgery and we must deliver ourselves… let us leave for California, to work and have time to create. Friends in America, Greeks and Americans, showed great willingness to help…» He himself initiated contacts with America. He sent a French translation of Zorba the Greek to Pearl Buck asking her to translate it.

In 1947 there was a talk about establishing Chairs for Modern Greek Studies in American Universities and the Prime Minister of Greece then, Constantinos Tsaldaris, announced that the Americans decided to create a Chair for Greek Studies at the Columbia University. The Chair was finally created in 2004, thanks to a generous donation by Angelo K. Tsakopoulos, from Sacramento. This gentleman has already created four Chairs for Greek Studies in American Universities and he is planning for more. A number of similar Chairs have been created by others.

In 1983, the Kazantzakis Chair was created at the San Francisco State University on the occasion of the 100^th anniversary from his birth. Angelo K. Tsakopoulos, made the necessary donation for it and he subsequently helped the operation of the Chair. The widow of the author and step-mother of mine, Helen N. Kazantzakis, and the President of the University cut the ribbon at the ceremony for the inauguration of the Chair. My humble self delivered the inaugural speech. Thanassis Maskaleris, living then and now in California, was the first professor of the Chair.

We reach December 1947 and Kazantzakis continues his work at UNESCO. His thoughts are directed to America. He wrote on 12 December 1947 that: He will stay at UNESCO until the Spring of next year, then «go to America for some months so that my eyes might see a New World and be comforted and, if I find quietness, to stay and work». The following year, in April 1948, he again tries to acquire a passport to travel to America. He is really exasperated because he is afraid again that he will be refused the passport. The trip was for the cooperation with Rhea Dalvin for the translation of his epic poem Odyssey. Refusal came again. Passport not given. The English translation of Odyssey was made ten years later, under the title Odyssey – A Modern Sequel. Translator was Kimon Friar who worked closely with Nikos Kazantzakis, to such an extent and correctness that it would be just and proper for the translation to appear as made by both. The work was published by Simon and Schuster. The poem of 33.333 verses became best-seller in 1958 in America. Five thousand copies were sold in one week. Three of his books were made into films: Zorba the Greek by Michalis Cacoyannis, Christ Recrucified by Jules Dassin and The Last Temptation of Christ by Martin Scorsese.

There is yet one more attempt of Nikos Kazantzakis to go to America. In a letter to his Cypriot friend Emilios Chourmouzios, editor of the prominent Athenian newspaper «Kathimerini», dated 2nd February 1948, he is asking to be appointed as correspondent of the newspaper in America. A similar letter he sent to the owner of «Kathimerini», George A. Vlachos. By acquiring this job he hoped that he would ge