Poetry
Πρώτη Πηγή
Not translated into English
Kyriakos Charalambides · 1961
Synopsis
The first collection by a Cypriot student in Athens, published in 1961 at the instigation of the poet Nikiforos Vrettakos, who found its title, corrected the proofs himself and wrote the first review of it. The painter and writer Fotis Kontoglou, for his part, would have liked to find more Byzantium and less love poetry in it. The poems are not described one by one.
Context
This first book opens a poetic body of work of a dozen collections, gathered in 2019 into a single volume from Ikaros. The second, in 1967, appeared with a preface by Takis Papatsonis; from 1977, the invasion of 1974 and the loss of the northern lands became the main matter of his poetry. Three Cypriot state prizes, the Greek state prize in 1996, two Greek academic prizes and the Cavafy prize in 1998 have honoured this work, which Greek critics place among the highest of his generation.
Who it is for
Early poems in Greek, for those who want to read the beginnings of one of the great Cypriot poets of the post-war period.
Prizes and reception
Nikiforos Vrettakos welcomed it in an Athens journal, Fotis Kontoglou with more reservation.