A Broken Man in Flower

A Broken Man in Flower presents new versions of work by one of the most significant Greek poets of the last century, translated by one of the UK''s most renowned contemporary poets.

The life of Yannis Ritsos was, to say the least, troubled. From an early age, he was dogged by the tuberculosis that killed his mother and brother. His father and sister suffered breakdowns and spent time in institutions. His poem Epitaphios (1936), a lament for a young man shot dead by the police during a tobacco workers'' strike, was publicly burned by the Metaxas regime and his books banned. Throughout his life he wa repeatedly persecuted, arrested and placed under house arrest by the oppressive Greek authorities.

The violence and tyranny of dictatorship is often fractured by the surreal. In the poems collected here, written by Ritsos while in prison and under house arrest, that fracture in perception is a wound. A Broken Man in Flower has an introduction