Salvatore Quasimodo

Salvatore Quasimodo (Modica, August 20, 1901 - Amalfi, June 14, 1968) was an Italian poet of Greek descent. His grandmother, née Papandreou, hailed from Patras. In 1917, he published his first poems and lived in several Italian cities such as Milan, Rome, and Florence, where he also got married. In these cities, he became acquainted with the leading Italian writers of the time. In 1945, he joined the Italian Communist Party. Among his works is a collection of seven poems titled "Dalla Grecia" ("From Greece"), inspired by his travels in Greece in October 1956. In 1959, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature and also received the Premio San Babila (1950), Premio Etna-Taormina (1953), and Premio Viareggio (1958). Many of his books have been translated into Greek and are available in Greek editions. He passed away in 1968 from a cerebral hemorrhage.