Viktoria THeodorou

Victoria Theodorou was born in Chania, Crete, in 1926, the daughter of a traveling icon painter from Serbia. The early death of her father—when she was just eight years old—and the poverty of her mother from Chania forced her to grow up in an orphanage in Heraklion. At the age of fifteen, she interrupted her studies to join the National Resistance. After the liberation (1944), she moved to Athens, completed high school, and enrolled in the Faculty of Philosophy (Department of Philology). In May 1948, Victoria Theodorou began a cycle of imprisonment and exile (Chios, Trikeri, Makronisos) until 1952, when she returned to Athens as an exiled parolee. She made her literary debut in the magazine "Art Review." Her first book was published in 1957. Since then, she has cultivated poetry but primarily collaborated with many magazines. She published poetry collections such as "Poems," "Eulogy," "Threshold and Window," "Northern Suburb," "The Lagouto," "The Excursion," "Urania," "Aryan Sleep," "The Nocturne of Borders," "Mildness," "Chronicle," "Favored Ones"; prose works "Women's Camps" and "Exiled Women in the Civil War Camps"; the narrative "Traiko"; the novella "Wedding Gift"; and the novel "The Young Ladies of Lampsakou Street." She translated poems and prose from French and Slavic languages. A portion of her work remains unpublished, with Thanos Foskarinis overseeing her archive. For more information, see Angela Kastrinaki, "Victoria Theodorou, A House by the Sea: Between Freedom and Commitment," and other texts in the magazine "Mandragoras" dedicated to the poet. She passed away on February 16, 2019.