Marios Markidis

Marios Markidis (1940-2003) was born in Athens. He graduated from Varvakeio High School in 1957 and studied psychiatry at the Universities of Athens and London (he was a student of D. Koureta and K. Stefanis). His early poetic endeavors were featured on the "literary page" of "Vradyni." With the poem "Ekmageio," he received an accolade in the poetry competition organized in 1962 by the magazine "Panspoudastiki" in collaboration with "Tachydromos" (the judging panel included Nikiforos Vrettakos and Yiannis Ritsos). In the same year, he appeared in the magazine "Epitheorisi Technis" (issue 92, pp. 179-180) with the poetic composition "Prologue to the Sword." He was a member of the editorial team of the magazines "Martyries kai Protaseis" and participated in the same team for the magazine "Simeioseis." Besides poetry, he was involved in essay writing, literary criticism, and translation (he was the first to translate a linguistic work by Noam Chomsky into Greek). In his poems and other writings, he often used the pseudonym Marios Afentopoulos. Throughout four decades of literary activity, he frequently contributed poems, essays, and critical readings to the magazines "Epitheorisi Technis" and "Idiois Analoimasin," as well as to the daily press ("Avgi," "Eleftherotypia"). He also curated the series "Psychology and Behavioral Sciences" for "Erasmos" publications. In 2002, he was awarded the State Poetry Prize for the collection "Nevertheless."