Katerina Agelaki - Rouk

Katerina Anghelaki-Rook (1939-2020) was born in Athens. She studied in Athens, Southern France, and Switzerland (University of Geneva). She held a diploma from the School of Translators and Interpreters (English, French, Russian). She first published poetry in "New Era" in 1956. Her articles and essays on Greek poetry and the translation of poetry were published in magazines and newspapers in Greece and abroad. She published approximately 20 poetry collections, as well as two volumes of poetic dialogues. In 1962, she was awarded the First Prize for Poetry by the city of Geneva (Prix Hensch). In 1985, she received the Second State Prize for Poetry. Her work was translated into English early on ("The Body is the Victory and the Defeat of Dreams", 1975, "The Scattered Papers of Penelope: New and Selected Poems", 1977, etc.), and she lectured and read her poems at universities in the USA and Canada (Harvard, Cornell, Dartmouth, N.Y. State, Princeton, Columbia, etc.). In 2000, she was honored with the Kostas and Eleni Ouranis Prize (Academy of Athens). Her poetry has been translated into more than ten languages and included in anthologies worldwide. Her translation work includes pieces by Samuel Beckett, Saul Bellow, Joseph Brodsky, Seamus Heaney, Jean-Marie Drot, Jacques Lacarrière, Mikhail Lermontov, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Peter Mackridge, Derek Walcott, Sylvia Plath, Michael March, Alexander Pushkin, William Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas, Elsa Triolet, Peter Bien, Nikos Kazantzakis, and others. She passed away in Athens on January 21, 2020, at the age of 81.