Lili Zografou

Lili Zografou (1922-1998). Lili Zografou was born in Heraklion, Crete, where she spent her childhood years. Her father was a newspaper publisher with particularly liberal ideas for his time and a passion for journalism. She attended the Korais High School and the Catholic Ursuline Gymnasium in Naxos. During the German occupation, she was imprisoned for her resistance activities while pregnant and gave birth in prison. After the liberation, she worked as a journalist. From 1953 to 1954, she lived in Paris. As a journalist, she opposed the Papadopoulos dictatorship. She made her literary debut in 1950 with the collection of novellas "Love," but gained recognition nine years later with the publication of her book "Nikos Kazantzakis, a Tragic Figure," a demystifying and psychoanalytic approach to the personality of the Cretan author. Her essay "Antignosis: The Crutches of Capitalism" also sparked discussions, in which she argued her theory of Christianity as a fundamental condition for the dominance of capitalism worldwide. Her most famous work is the novel "The Sybarite," with a strongly autobiographical tone and evident influences from Nietzschean philosophy. Her play "A Bargain Price for Paradise" was performed in 1976 by the National Theatre's Second Stage. (Source: Archive of Greek Authors, EKEBI).