{"title":"Yannis Ritsos","description":"\u003cp\u003eExplore the poignant and powerful poetry of Yannis Ritsos. A master of Greek verse, Ritsos' work delves into themes of resilience, history, and the human spirit. Browse his collections and discover a profound literary voice.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"in-secret-book-yannis-ritsos-9781907587214","title":"In Secret","description":"Yannis Ritsos (19091990) is one of Greece s finest and most celebrated poets, and was nine times nominated for a Nobel Prize. Louis Aragon called him the greatest poet of our age . He wrote in the face of ill health, personal tragedy and the systematic persecution by successive hard-line, right-wing regimes that led to many years in prison, or in island detention camps. Despite this, his lifetime s work amounted to 120 collections of poems, several novels, critical essays, and translations of Russian and Eastern European poetry.The 1960 setting, by Mikis Theodorakis, of Ritsos s epic poem Epitaphios was said to have helped inspire a cultural revolution in Greece. In Secret gives versions of Ritsos s short lyric poems: brief, compressed narratives that are spare, though not scant. They possess an emotional resonance that is instinctively subversive: rooted in the quotidian but at the same time freighted with mystery. The poems are so pared-down, so distilled, that the story-fragments we are given the scene- settings, the tiny psychodramas have an irresistible potency The Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation for the Winter Quarter, 2012.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49736417214737,"sku":"NGR9781907587214","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50279522664721,"sku":"GOR007737896","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50402040643857,"sku":"CIN1907587217G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51857288691985,"sku":"GOR012325867","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1907587217.jpg?v=1750931603"},{"product_id":"yannis-ritsos-among-his-contemporaries-book-yannis-ritsos-9780992863296","title":"Yannis Ritsos among his contemporaries","description":"The first half of the book is devoted to the poetry of Yannis Ritsos and includes several of his longer poems in their entirety. In the second half are selections of mainly shorter by poems by the other five poets, although it includes Gatsos' long poem Amorgos.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49738112893201,"sku":"NGR9780992863296","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0992863295.jpg?v=1751267178"},{"product_id":"monochords-book-yannis-ritsos-9781913513429","title":"Monochords","description":"Returning to the island of Samos during the summer of 1979, where he had spent long periods of exile throughout his life, Greek poet Yannis Ritsos composed a remarkable collection of 336 single-line poems, written at a rate of about 10 a day: the Monochords, each line an essential observation of a moment; a personal archive of time past, present and future.  In London in 2020, during a period of Covid confinement, artist and filmmaker Chiara Ambrosio began responding to Ritsos’ words through linocut images: an experiment in entering the space opened by each poem, rendering it in line and shape; a daily ritual that accompanied her along a strange year of exile from life.  'Yannis Ritsos composed monochorda, single-line poems, as antidotes to the concocted complexities silencing truth. Chiara Ambrosio’s linocuts, beautifully intermingled with Ritsos' words, add their own ascetic harmony to his monochorda thus boosting their pertinence to our dissonant age.' – Yanis Varoufakis  'This meditative book is an inspiring act of repair twice over, for ordeals of seclusion, threat, and tedium past and present.' – Marina Warner  'A major poem by one of the greatest European poets of the past 100 years, in an exemplary translation \u0026amp; with a further superb expansion into a year's journey of linocuts make this book a vessel that holds urgently needed communal life-force.' - Stephen Watts","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49745826677009,"sku":"NGR9781913513429","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1913513424.jpg?v=1751219018"},{"product_id":"yannis-ritsos-book-yannis-ritsos-9780691068787","title":"Yannis Ritsos","description":"The celebrated modern Greek poet Yannis Ritsos follows such distinguished predecessors as C. P. Cavafy and George Seferis in a dramatic and symbolic expression of a tragic sense of life. The shorter poems gathered in this volume present what Ritsos calls \"simple things\" that turn out not to be simple at all. Here we find a world of subtle nuances, in which everyday events hide much that is threatening, oppressive, and spiritually vacuous--but the poems also provide lyrical and idyllic interludes, along with cunning re-creations of Greek mythology and history. This collection of Ritsos's work--perhaps most of all those poems written while he was in forced exile under the dictatorship of the Colonels--testifies to his just place among the major European poets of this century. The distinguished translator of modern Greek poetry Edmund Keeley has chosen for this anthology selections from seven of Ritsos's volumes of shorter poems written between 1946 and 1975. Two of these volumes are represented here in English versions for the first time, two others have been translated only sporadically, and the remaining three were first published in a bilingual edition now out of print (Ritsos in Parentheses). The collection thus covers thirty years of a poetic career that is the most prolific, and among the most honored, in Greece's modern history.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":49959758692625,"sku":"CIN069106878XA","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/069106878X.jpg?v=1751105552"},{"product_id":"diaries-of-exile-book-yannis-ritsos-9781935744580","title":"Diaries Of Exile","description":"Called 'the greatest poet of our age' by Louis Aragon, Yannis Ritsos is a poet whose writing life is thoroughly entwined with the contemporary history of his homeland, Greece. Nowhere is this more apparent that in Diary of Exile, a series of diaries-in-poetry written by Ritsos between 1948 and 1950, during Greece's Civil War, while a political prisoner on the island of Limnos and later at the infamous camp on the desert island Makronisos. The poems offer glimpses into the quiet violence of prison life and the struggle to maintain humanity through language.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50124625707281,"sku":"CIN1935744585A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50401951285521,"sku":"CIN1935744585G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50934261088529,"sku":"CIN1935744585VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1935744585.jpg?v=1751315435"},{"product_id":"yannis-ritsos-book-yannis-ritsos-9780918526670","title":"Yannis Ritsos","description":"1991 Outstanding Academic Book of the Year - \u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e . Friar and Mysiades deserve much credit for providing, in one volume, the first full-range sampling of this fecund, variegated, and highly original poet in English.\" - \u003ci\u003eThe New Republic\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50154090561809,"sku":"GOR010968060","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":50718883447057,"sku":"NGR9780918526670","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51009519059217,"sku":"NIN9780918526670","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51693552206097,"sku":"CIN0918526671G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52424304066833,"sku":"NLS9780918526670","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52817229775121,"sku":"CIN0918526671VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0918526671.jpg?v=1751078318"},{"product_id":"yannis-ritsos-book-yannis-ritsos-9780691019086","title":"Yannis Ritsos","description":"The celebrated modern Greek poet Yannis Ritsos follows such distinguished predecessors as C. P. Cavafy and George Seferis in a dramatic and symbolic expression of a tragic sense of life. The shorter poems gathered in this volume present what Ritsos calls \"simple things\" that turn out not to be simple at all. Here we find a world of subtle nuances, in which everyday events hide much that is threatening, oppressive, and spiritually vacuous--but the poems also provide lyrical and idyllic interludes, along with cunning re-creations of Greek mythology and history. This collection of Ritsos's work--perhaps most of all those poems written while he was in forced exile under the dictatorship of the Colonels--testifies to his just place among the major European poets of this century. The distinguished translator of modern Greek poetry Edmund Keeley has chosen for this anthology selections from seven of Ritsos's volumes of shorter poems written between 1946 and 1975. Two of these volumes are represented here in English versions for the first time, two others have been translated only sporadically, and the remaining three were first published in a bilingual edition now out of print (Ritsos in Parentheses). The collection thus covers thirty years of a poetic career that is the most prolific, and among the most honored, in Greece's modern history.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50323425362193,"sku":"CIN0691019088G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52152730747153,"sku":"CIN0691019088VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52736256672017,"sku":"NIN9780691019086","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0691019088.jpg?v=1750700089"},{"product_id":"fourth-dimension-book-yannis-ritsos-9780691024653","title":"The Fourth Dimension","description":"In the dramatic monologues that make up The Fourth Dimension--especially those based on the grim history of Mycenae and its royal protagonists--the celebrated modern Greek poet Yannis Ritsos presents a timeless poetic paradigm of the condition of Greece, past and present. The volume also contains a group of modern narratives, including the famous, and much-anthologized, \"Moonlight Sonata.\" Ritsos, rightly, regarded the The Fourth Dimension as his finest achievement. It is now presented to English- speaking readers for the first time in its entirety. From \"Philoctetes\" All the speeches of great men, about the dead and about heroes. Astonishing, awesome words, pursued us even in our sleep, slipping beneath closed doors, from the banqueting hall  where glasses and voices sparkled, and the veil  of an unseen dancer rippled silently  like a diaphanous, whirling wall  between life and death. This throbbing  our childhood nights, lightening the shadows of shields  etched on white walls by slow moonlight.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50359288725777,"sku":"CIN0691024650G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52736555122961,"sku":"NIN9780691024653","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0691024650.jpg?v=1751327141"},{"product_id":"monochords-book-yannis-ritsos-9781935635703","title":"Monochords","description":"Poetry. Translated from the Greek by Paul Merchant. The poems in this volume were written in the village of Karlovasi on Samos at the rate of about ten a day in the summer of 1979, a first draft written August 1st through 26th, the second completed by September 1st. After becoming dangerously ill in 1968, Ritsos had been released from the prison island of Leros and sent to strict house arrest on Samos, where his wife had a medical practice. He was allowed to return to Athens and to publish again in 1971. He subsequently spent summers on Samos, for instance in 1972, 1975, and 1979, when these poems were composed.--Paul Merchant","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50921792733457,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50921793159441,"sku":"CIN1935635700G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1935635700.jpg?v=1750726941"},{"product_id":"ritsos-in-parentheses-book-yannis-ritsos-9780691603391","title":"Ritsos in Parentheses","description":"Perhaps Greece's most important poet, Yannis Ritsos follows such eminent predecessors as Cavafy, Sikelianos, and Seferis in the dramatic and symbolic expression of a tragic sense of life. The three volumes of Ritsos's poetry translated here--Parentheses, 1946-47, Parentheses, 1950-61, and The Distant, 1975--represent a thirty year poetic journey and a developing sensibility that link the poet's subtler perceptions at different moments of his maturity. In his introduction to the poems, and as an explanation of the book's title, Edmund Keeley writes: \"The two signs of the parenthesis are like cupped hands facing each other across a distance, hands that are straining to come together, to achieve a meeting that would serve to reaffirm human contact between isolated presences; but though there are obvious gestures toward closing the gap between the hands, the gestures seem inevitably to fail, and the meeting never quite occurs.\" In terms of the development of Ritsos's poetic vision, the distance within the parenthesis is shorter in each of the two earlier volumes than in the most recent volume. There the space has become almost infinite, yet Ritsos's powerfully evocative if stark landscape reveals a stylistic purity that is the latest mark of his greatness.  Originally published in 1979.  The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51005841506577,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51005845471505,"sku":"NIN9780691603391","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0691603391.jpg?v=1761646225"},{"product_id":"exercises-19501960-book-yannis-ritsos-9781946604422","title":"Exercises 1950–1960","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51631234711825,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51631234908433,"sku":"NGR9781946604422","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1946604429.jpg?v=1750727111"},{"product_id":"late-into-the-night-book-yannis-ritsos-9780932440716","title":"Late Into the Night","description":"The last poems of this 20th-century Greek master are tinged with sadness and loss, but they also, in their candidly poetic reporting of the life and world around him, hum with vitality and an odd note of hope. Ritsos felt defeated in his own health and politics, but as a poet he experienced a surge of creativity that is fascinating to follow in its chronology and exactitude.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51694180106513,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51694181024017,"sku":"CIN0932440711G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0932440711.jpg?v=1750704853"},{"product_id":"ritsos-in-parentheses-book-yannis-ritsos-9780691284552","title":"Ritsos in Parentheses","description":"Winner of the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award, Academy of American Poets  A bilingual edition of three major poetry collections by one of the most important Greek poets of the twentieth century  One of the most prolific and popular of modern Greek poets, Yannis Ritsos follows such eminent predecessors as Cavafy, Sikelianos, and Seferis in the dramatic and symbolic expression of a tragic sense of life. The three volumes of Ritsos’s poetry translated here—Parentheses, 1946–47, Parentheses, 1950–61, and The Distant—document a three-decade poetic journey that reveals the evolution of the poet’s sensibility. This bilingual edition also features an insightful introduction from translator Edmund Keeley, whom Paul Muldoon has called “the gold standard in translators of Greek poetry.”","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":52487450657041,"sku":"NGR9780691284552","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53155406020881,"sku":"NIN9780691284552","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780691284552.jpg?v=1766138150"},{"product_id":"fourth-dimension-book-yannis-ritsos-9780856462528","title":"Fourth Dimension","description":"In Greece, more than most places, past and present, living and dead, have always coexisted: against the backdrop of that spare, harsh, beautiful limestone landscape, ideas and heroes have battled through the centuries. This title tells the same story.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52708144840977,"sku":"GOR001822591","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52729871302929,"sku":"GOR008345510","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780856462528.jpg?v=1762785171"},{"product_id":"partir-en-dos-la-pena-split-the-sorrow-in-two-book-yannis-ritsos-9788439743675","title":"Partir en dos la pena \/ Split the Sorrow in Two","description":"\u003cb\u003eLa colección «Poesía portátil» reúne en esta antología los versos más representativos de Yannis Ritsos, uno de los poetas griegos más importantes del siglo XX.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e «Portentoso creador de imágenes, su verso revela siempre las raíces del dolor, acaso para conjurarlo». --Jordi Llavina,\u003c\/b\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eLa Vanguardia\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Yannis Ritsos es uno de los grandes poetas griegos del siglo XX y una de las mejores voces de la poesía europea. Con una delicadeza excepcional, su lirismo se imbuye del \u003ci\u003epathos\u003c\/i\u003e griego, y en sus versos, cargados de simbolismo, se hallan huellas del firme compromiso político fruto de sus años militando en el Partido Comunista. Violeta Gil, autora de \u003ci\u003eLlego con tres heridas\u003c\/i\u003e, nos ofrece en esta hermosa selección unos de los versos más emblemáticos del poeta heleno.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e«Partiendo en dos la pena, igual que partían sobre la rodilla su pan de cebada».\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eENGLISH DESCRIPTION\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eIn this anthology, the \"Flash Poetry\" series collects the most emblematic verses by Yannis Ritsos, one of the most important Greek poets of the twentieth century.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Yannis Ritsos is one of the greatest Greek poets of the twentieth century and one of the greatest voices in European poetry. With exceptional gentleness, his lyricism is imbued with Greek pathos, and in his verses, charged with symbolism, we find traces of his firm political commitment, fruit of his active years within the Communist Party. Violeta Gil, author of \u003ci\u003eLlegó con tres heridas\u003c\/i\u003e, shares some of the most iconic verses of the Hellenic poet in this beautiful selection.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"Splitting sorrow in two, same as they did their barely bread over their knee.\"","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53046170943761,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53046171107601,"sku":"NIN9788439743675","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}]},{"product_id":"ritsos-in-parentheses-book-yannis-ritsos-9780691632735","title":"Ritsos in Parentheses","description":"Perhaps Greece's most important poet, Yannis Ritsos follows such eminent predecessors as Cavafy, Sikelianos, and Seferis in the dramatic and symbolic expression of a tragic sense of life. The three volumes of Ritsos's poetry translated here--Parentheses, 1946-47, Parentheses, 1950-61, and The Distant, 1975--represent a thirty year poetic journey and a developing sensibility that link the poet's subtler perceptions at different moments of his maturity. In his introduction to the poems, and as an explanation of the book's title, Edmund Keeley writes: \"The two signs of the parenthesis are like cupped hands facing each other across a distance, hands that are straining to come together, to achieve a meeting that would serve to reaffirm human contact between isolated presences; but though there are obvious gestures toward closing the gap between the hands, the gestures seem inevitably to fail, and the meeting never quite occurs.\" In terms of the development of Ritsos's poetic vision, the distance within the parenthesis is shorter in each of the two earlier volumes than in the most recent volume. There the space has become almost infinite, yet Ritsos's powerfully evocative if stark landscape reveals a stylistic purity that is the latest mark of his greatness.  Originally published in 1979.  The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53108515995921,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53108516323601,"sku":"NIN9780691632735","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780691632735.jpg?v=1770561132"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-ie\/collections\/author-books-by-yannis-ritsos.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}