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EpicThe OdysseyὈδύσσειαHomer · -700A Greek epic of the Archaic period, composed to be sung, about a king's long return to his island after the Trojan War.Literature
TaleAesop's FablesΜῦθοιAesop · -570Short fables in which animals play the roles of men, handed down by word of mouth before being gathered in writing three centuries later.Literature
TheatreErophileΕρωφίληGeorgios Chortatsis · 1637The first tragedy of Cretan theatre, written in the island's dialect in the time of the Venetians and published long after its author's death, it was performed, sung and reworked throughout Greece for three centuries.Literature
EpicErotokritosΕρωτόκριτοςVitsentzos Kornaros · 1713A long Cretan poem of the Renaissance, written in the vernacular and printed a century after its author's death, sung and recited by heart in the island's countryside.Literature
PoetryHymn to LibertyΎμνος εις την ΕλευθερίανDionysios Solomos · 1825Written in 1823, in the midst of the war of independence, the song became the national anthem of the country; its author, trained in Italy, chose to write in the language of the people.Literature
PoetryOdesΩδαίAndreas Kalvos · 1826Written in exile during the War of Independence and published in two instalments, in Geneva and then in Paris, these odes were translated into French as soon as they appeared.LiteraturePublic domain
NovelLeandrosΟ ΛέανδροςPanagiotis Soutsos · 1834An epistolary novel written just after independence, in a language the people did not speak, it combines an unhappy passion with a journey through the places where ancient Greece and insurgent Greece meet.Literature
NovelThanos VlekasΘάνος ΒλέκαςPavlos Kalligas · 1855A novel of the Greece of Otto, written by a man of the court, a jurist and minister, it shows brigandage, corruption and the distribution of the lands taken from the Ottomans as the three plagues of the new kingdom.LiteraturePublic domain
TheatreThe Basil PlantΟ ΒασιλικόςAntonios Matesis · 1859A drama in five acts written in 1830 under British administration and set a hundred and twenty years earlier under the Venetians, it pits the old Ionian nobility against a rising bourgeoisie.Literature
PoetryΔιονύσου πλουςAlexandros Rizos Rangavis · 1864not translated into EnglishA poem by a former Romantic turned neoclassicist, written after an ancient frieze in Athens, it takes up an episode that the Homeric hymn already told.LiteraturePublic domain
NovelPope JoanΗ Πάπισσα ΙωάνναEmmanuel Rhoides · 1866A medieval tale written by a twenty-nine-year-old Hellenist who feigns erudition the better to mock, it got its author expelled from the Orthodox Church over a book that spoke only of Rome.LiteraturePublic domain
NovelLoukis LarasΛουκής ΛάραςDimitrios Vikelas · 1879A tale of flight written by a Greek merchant in London, in simple language and without emphasis, it tells the story of the war of independence from the point of view of those who endured it rather than fought it.LiteraturePublic domain
Short storiesΤο αμάρτημα της μητρός μουGeorgios Vizyinos · 1883not translated into EnglishA Thracian childhood narrative written by a doctor of philosophy from Göttingen whom madness was to carry off, it opens in Greece the way to a prose that seeks its reasons in souls rather than in customs.LiteraturePublic domain
EssayΤο ταξίδι μουYannis Psycharis · 1888not translated into EnglishPublished in 1888, the book is the manifesto of demoticism. It opened the Greek language controversy, which sent crowds into the streets of Athens in 1901 and was not settled until 1976.LiteraturePublic domain
PoetryΟ ΦωτεινόςAristotelis Valaoritis · 1891not translated into EnglishA narrative poem interrupted by the death of the poet and published twelve years later, it draws on the memory of a revolt against Venice that the peasants of his island had kept alive.LiteraturePublic domain
NovelΟ ζητιάνοςAndreas Karkavitsas · 1896not translated into EnglishWritten in the vernacular by a military doctor who had practised in the villages, this narrative shows a Thessaly only just joined to Greece, where poverty and credulity provide a living for whoever knows how to use them.LiteraturePublic domain
PoetryΟ τάφοςKostis Palamas · 1898not translated into EnglishAn elegy of 1898 born of the death of a child, it is the most intimate book of a poet who dominated the letters of his country for forty years.Literature
NovelΗ φόνισσαAlexandros Papadiamantis · 1903not translated into EnglishA short novel of 1903, first published in instalments, it follows an old island woman whom the condition of poor girls leads to a terrible conclusion, and it does not judge her.LiteraturePublic domain
NarrativeTraditionsΠαραδόσειςNikolaos Politis · 1904A collection of oral traditions published in two volumes in 1904, gathered throughout the country with the help of schoolteachers.Literature
Short filmThe WeaversΟι υφάντρεςManaki Brothers · 1905A minute filmed in 1905 among the Aromanians of Ottoman Macedonia, by two photographer brothers who were filming their own family.Cinema
NovelΦθινόπωροKonstantinos Chatzopoulos · 1917not translated into EnglishA novel of atmosphere written by a Hellenist who studied in Munich, it replaces the action of the Greek letters of the day with the nuance, the silence and the rain of a season moving on.LiteraturePublic domain
PoetryΤο φως που καίειKostas Varnalis · 1922not translated into EnglishA long poem published in Egypt under a false name by a Greek teacher who had just turned to Marxism, it confronts the great figures of Western sacrifice with the mockery and revolt of the oppressed.Literature
NovelSlaves in Their ChainsΟι σκλάβοι στα δεσμά τουςKonstantinos Theotokis · 1922Novel by a Corfiot aristocrat turned socialist, written the year before his death, it shows an island where credit has replaced land and where everyone serves a chain he does not see.Literature
NovelLife in the TombΗ ζωή εν τάφωStratis Myrivilis · 1924The diary of a volunteer from Lesbos in the trenches of the Eastern front, written against all patriotic exaltation and taken up again by its author over thirty years, it gave Greek prose a language close to the one people speak.Literature
PoetryΕλεγεία και ΣάτιρεςKostas Karyotakis · 1927not translated into EnglishThe last book of a provincial civil servant who died at thirty-one, it holds in two words what the Greek century would remember of him: lament and mockery, on the same page.LiteraturePublic domain
Short filmΟι περιπέτειες του ΒιλλάρJoseph Hepp · 1927A short silent comedy shot in the streets of Athens, saved by the gift that its Hungarian cameraman made to the Cinémathèque in the early sixties.Cinema
Feature filmΑστέρωDimitrios Gaziadis · 1929A silent film shot in 1929 in the mountains of Kalavryta, it transposes an idyll from America to the Greece of shepherds and fustanellas.Cinema
Feature filmDaphnis and ChloeΔάφνις και ΧλόηOrestis Laskos · 1931A 1931 silent film based on Longus's ancient idyll and shot in Mytilene, it was the first Greek film shown abroad.Cinema
Feature filmSocial DecayΚοινωνική σαπίλαStelios Tatasopoulos · 1932A silent film of 1932, the first film of its author, who wrote the screenplay and played the lead role, it shows the Athens of the thirties, its slums, its strikes and its police.Cinema
PoetryPoemsΠοιήματαConstantine Cavafy · 1935A short body of work by an Alexandrian clerk who never sold a single line, gathered into a volume by his friends shortly after his death.Literature
PoetryΥψικάμινοςAndreas Embirikos · 1935not translated into EnglishAutomatic prose pieces by a shipowner turned psychoanalyst, published in an Athens that did not want them, they bring surrealism into the Greek language and provoke lasting hostility towards their author.Literature
PoetryMythistoremaΜυθιστόρημαGeorge Seferis · 1935A suite of fragments written by a thirty-five-year-old diplomat born near Smyrna, it makes the figures of Homer the measure of a Greek present emptied by defeat.Literature
NovelArgoΑργώGiorgos Theotokas · 1936A fresco in two volumes written by a young lawyer from Constantinople, it shows the bourgeoisie and the students of Athens in the years following the collapse of the Great Idea.Literature
NovelThe Tale of a TownΤο χρονικό μιας πολιτείαςPandelis Prevelakis · 1938A chronicle of a Cretan town written by a native of the place aged twenty-nine, with no plot and no main character, it seeks to save from oblivion a quarter of a century of shared life.Literature
NovelEroicaΕρόικαKosmas Politis · 1938A novel by a bank clerk who grew up in Smyrna, written sixteen years after the loss of his city, it follows boys and a girl in a light that the narrator knows to be lost.Literature
PoetryΣτους φίλους μιας άλλης χαράςGiorgos Sarantaris · 1940not translated into EnglishThe last collection published in the lifetime of a thirty-two-year-old poet, a few months before he left for the front, it asserts a joy that his age did not share.LiteraturePublic domain
PoetryAkritan SongsΑκριτικάAngelos Sikelianos · 1942Poems written during the Occupation and circulated clandestinely in a hundred manuscript copies, they borrow from the Byzantine songs of the frontier guards their breath and their name.Literature
PoetryUrsa MinorTakis Papatsonis · 1944A work by a senior Finance official, a Roman Catholic by faith, published under the Occupation, it holds prayer and meditation together in the same free verse.Literature
DiaryΤο πλατύ ποτάμιYannis Beratis · 1946not translated into EnglishAn account of the Albanian front by a volunteer tasked with addressing the enemy over a loudspeaker, written without a word of glory.Literature
NovelZorba the GreekΒίος και πολιτεία του Αλέξη ΖορμπάNikos Kazantzakis · 1946A novel of 1946 drawn from a real bankruptcy, it sets a man of books against a Cretan labourer who owes nothing to anyone and expects nothing.Literature
PoetryΗ τιμωρία των μάγωνNanos Valaoritis · 1947not translated into EnglishThe first book of a young Greek poet settled in London after the Liberation, it brings together war poems in which the sonnet takes in the images of surrealism.Literature
Feature filmThe Last MissionΤελευταία αποστολήNikos Tsiforos · 1949A 1949 drama about the Occupation, told in flashbacks from a police station, in which a mother's collaboration with the occupier tears apart an officer's family.Cinema
Feature filmThe EngagementΤ' αρραβωνιάσματαMaria Plyta · 1950A drama of manners drawn from a play of 1925, shot in 1950 in a fishing village on Salamis, about the love of two young people threatened by a rumour.Cinema
Feature filmBitter BreadΠικρό ψωμίGrigoris Grigoriou · 1951A drama of 1951 shot in the courtyards and on the building sites of Athens, about a working-class family overwhelmed by the war and postwar poverty.Cinema
PoetryWith Face to the WallΜε το πρόσωπο στον τοίχοMiltos Sachtouris · 1952A collection published at his own expense by a poet who never took a job, it establishes a manner of bare, disquieting images that Greek poetry had not known.Literature
Short storiesThe End of Our Small TownΤο τέλος της μικρής μας πόληςDimitris Chatzis · 1953A collection of linked stories, first published in Bucharest during its author's exile, it tells of the extinction of a provincial town and of the old world it sheltered.Literature
Feature filmThe Counterfeit CoinΗ κάλπικη λίραGiorgos Tzavellas · 1955A sketch film from 1955, shot entirely in a studio, it follows a counterfeit gold coin through the poor and bourgeois Athens of the postwar years.Cinema
PoetryThe Moonlight SonataΗ σονάτα του σεληνόφωτοςYannis Ritsos · 1956A long monologue from 1956, written under police surveillance, it makes an old woman speak before a silent young man, in a house where nothing moves any more.Literature
Feature filmThe Ogre of AthensΟ ΔράκοςNikos Koundouros · 1956Film noir of 1956 about an ordinary employee who takes on the identity of a gangster among the underworld of Athens cabarets.Cinema
PoetryΟ χρόνος και το ποτάμιNikiforos Vrettakos · 1957not translated into EnglishA collection from the maturity of a poet from Laconia who returned to his landscape after the war and the resistance, it holds in a single image the passing of the days and friendship for the living.Literature
Feature filmThe Island of SilenceΤο νησί της σιωπήςLila Kourkoulakou · 1958A fiction film of 1958 made in the manner of a documentary, shot partly on the islet of Spinalónga while the leper colony was still in operation.Cinema
PoetryThe Axion EstiΆξιον ΕστίOdysseas Elytis · 1959A poem of 1959 whose form is borrowed from the Orthodox liturgy, it gives Greece a book-temple, which Theodorakis's music carried before the general public.Literature
Feature filmMaiden's CheekΤο ξύλο βγήκε από τον παράδεισοAlekos Sakellarios · 1959A comedy from 1959 based on a play staged in 1944, it pits a poor teacher against a rich pupil in a girls' school in Athens.Cinema
NovelDrifting CitiesΑκυβέρνητες πολιτείεςStratis Tsirkas · 1961The first volume of a trilogy completed in 1965, it follows the Greeks of the East and the soldiers in exile during the war, between Jerusalem, Cairo and Alexandria.Literature
NovelThe Third WeddingΤο τρίτο στεφάνιKostas Tachtsis · 1962A novel in two women's voices, published at the author's own expense for lack of a publisher, it tells half a Greek century from below, from the side of the kitchens and the family quarrels.Literature
Feature filmThe Red LanternsΤα κόκκινα φανάριαVasilis Georgiadis · 1963A 1963 drama about the women of a brothel in the great Greek port, on the eve of the announced closure of the brothels.Cinema
Short storiesΓια ένα φιλότιμοYorgos Ioannou · 1964not translated into EnglishShort prose pieces written by a teacher in a village of Kynouria and in Benghazi, they inaugurate the prose of lived experience, which their author never left.Literature
Feature filmZorba the GreekΑλέξης ΖορμπάςMichael Cacoyannis · 1964A 1964 adaptation, shot in black and white in rural Crete, of a Greek novel about the meeting of an intellectual and a man of the land.Cinema
Feature filmZCosta-Gavras · 1969A political thriller from 1969 that transposes into an unnamed country the murder of a Greek deputy that had taken place six years earlier, filmed during the dictatorship of the colonels.Cinema
PoetryThe TargetΟ στόχοςManolis Anagnostakis · 1970The late book of a Thessaloniki doctor who had been sentenced to death at twenty-four, published in the time of the junta, it speaks of the defeat of a generation without ever explaining it.Literature
PoetryΝεκρόδειπνοςTakis Sinopoulos · 1970not translated into EnglishA long poem published under the junta, it draws up the funeral roll of the obscure dead of the Greek wars, under the Occupation and in the fratricidal struggle.Literature
Feature filmThe Travelling PlayersΟ θίασοςTheo Angelopoulos · 1975A 1975 fresco that spans thirteen years of Greek history through the eyes of a travelling theatre troupe.Cinema
Feature filmRembetikoΡεμπέτικοKostas Ferris · 1983A sung fresco from 1983, loosely drawn from the life of a rebetiko singer, which follows forty years of Greek history from the exodus from Smyrna.Cinema