Giannis Maris

Giannis Maris (1916-1979). Giannis Maris, the literary pseudonym of Giannis Tsirimokos, was born in Skopelos to a judicial family. He hailed from a well-known political family in Phthiotis and grew up in Lamia. He graduated from the Law School of the University of Athens and worked at the Agricultural Bank of Greece. During the German occupation, he co-founded the Union of People's Democracy (E.L.D.) with Ilias Tsirimokos and Stavros Kanellopoulos, an organization that participated in the National Liberation Front (EAM), where he served as editor-in-chief and columnist for its newspaper "Machi." From 1945, he pursued a career in journalism. In 1950, following the newspaper's revelations about the Makronisos camp, he was tried and imprisoned in the Vourla prison in Drapetsona. He was released thanks to the intervention of the Socialist International and political leader Alexandros Svolos. He collaborated with publications such as "Progressive Liberal," "New Line," "Free Speech," "Athinaiki," "Acropolis," "Apogevmatini," and the magazine "Proto." He made his literary debut in 1953 with the novel "Crime in Kolonaki," which was serialized in the magazine "Family." The success of the novel, published as a book by Atlantis Publications, encouraged him to continue writing. Alongside his journalism career, he managed to write around fifty detective stories, twenty scripts for film and television, and two plays ("Mr. 5%," presented by Dinos Iliopoulos' troupe, and "Who is Lysandros," presented by the troupe of Efthymiou-Mavropoulos-Papagiannopoulos, both in collaboration with D.K. Evangelidis). As noted by author Philippos Filippou in the newspaper "To Vima," [...] "A creator of an entire school of detective story writers, Giannis Maris used the detective plot as a pretext. What truly interested him was the atmosphere, the setting, and human relationships, creating vivid characters as a result of his continuous observation of the people he encountered throughout his long career. A characteristic human type in Maris' work and the main hero in most of his books is Inspector Bekas, a short, stout man with an unremarkable appearance, who does not belong to the types of Athens' nightlife. He is an exemplary family man, has never read poetry but 'has heard of Varnalis,' and believes that 'private detectives are for movies and novels; without the police mechanism behind you, you are unarmed, weak, naked...'" Giannis Maris passed away in Athens in 1979. For more biographical details, see Chatzifotis I. M., "Maris, Giannis," in the "Great Encyclopedia of Modern Greek Literature," vol. 10, Athens: Haris Patsis, n.d., and Alexis Ziras, "Maris, Giannis" in the "Dictionary of Modern Greek Literature," Athens: Patakis, 2007, p. 1333. (Source: Archive of Greek Authors, EKEBI & newspaper "To Vima").