George Seferis

George Seferis won the 1963 Nobel Prize in Literature, becoming the first Greek writer to receive it. The award recognized poetry that connected modern Greek experience with ancient myth and Mediterranean history.

One of Seferis's major works is Mythistorema, published in 1935. It uses fragments of Greek myth, exile, travel, and modern uncertainty rather than a simple narrative plot.

Yes. Seferis served in the Greek diplomatic service and was posted in places including London, Ankara, and the Middle East during the Second World War.

Seferis was born in Smyrna in 1900, before the city became Izmir in modern Turkey. The displacement of Greeks from Asia Minor after 1922 became one of the historical wounds behind much of his poetry.