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Seferis
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His original surname was Georgios Seferiades.
He was and is one the leading lights of the Greek poetry, the first Greek Nobel laureate for literature (1963), essayist and diplomat.
He was born on 13 March 1900 in Smyrna and died on 20 September 1971 in Athens.
After studying law in Athens and Paris, Seferis joined the Greek diplomatic service in 1926 and served in London and Albania before World War II, during which he was in exile with the Greek government. After the war he held posts in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq and was Greek ambassador in London (1957-62).
Seferis was once acclaimed as "the poet of the future" on the publication of the Turning Point (1931), his first collection of poems. It was followed by The Cistern, Mithistorima (Mythology), Gymnopaidia, Logbook I, Book of Exercises, Logbook II (1945), the long poem Thrush (1947), Logbook III (1955), and Secret Poems (1966)
Selections of his poetry have been widely translated, the fullest English version being that by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard (George Seferis: Collected Poems 1924-1955), published in 1969.
Seferis also translated poetry into Greek and wrote a book of essays: Dhokimes (1944).
He is the most distinguished Greek poet of "the generation of the '30s", which introduced symbolism to modern Greek literature. His work is permeated by a deep feeling for the tragic predicament of the Greek, as indeed, of modern man in general.
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