Biography

Jannis Ritsos, 1909-1990, recipient of the Lenin-peace-prize, born in Monemvassia, the Peloponesse. He finished high school in Gythio and moved to Athen in 1925, where he worked as a clerk in a notary's office. Three year’s hospitalization for tuberculosis.

1931 work as actor and dancer, since 1933 member of communist party, writer of articles for the greece communist party Risopastis. His work »Epitaphios« (»Epitaph«) was burned in 1936 by the regime of Metaxa. After civil war he was banished on deportion islands for several years, at least by the colonal dictatorship in 1967 and solitary confinement on the island Samos.