With the release of In Search of Lost Time, the seventh and final volume of Marcel Proust's novel cycle, a translation effort that began in 1969 and was interrupted in the middle of the fifth volume, The Captive, by the unexpected death of Pavlos Zannas in 1989, is completed. The thread was then taken up by Panagiotis Poulos, who translated the second half of The Captive, Albertine Disappeared, a translation that was honored with the State Prize for Literary Translation (2015), and finally, In Search of Lost Time.
At the same time, Panagiotis Poulos proceeded to revise the earlier volumes based on the newer editions of Proust's work and the findings of recent research, annotating the entire work with a plethora of notes—factual, interpretative, and intertextual—which guide the reader in their exploration of this complex and multifaceted work that has marked what we call modernity.
Thus, the first Greek edition of In Search of Lost Time, a work of art that has already secured a prominent place in world literature through translations in over forty languages, is now a reality. The dense references in In Search of Lost Time to countless aspects and dimensions of Marcel Proust's work, combined with the upheavals brought about by the First World War, reshape the landscape of the novel while inviting the reader to refer back to the preceding volumes.
Additionally, the author articulates his stance towards art, both directly and indirectly, as well as the limits of this unique literary endeavor, including the limits of endurance and the temporal span of his own life. The strengths and weaknesses of artistic truth are weighed using a "transversal" gaze, which not only allows the reader to approach what has transpired so far from a new perspective but also encourages them to turn towards the future, critical evaluations, and every kind of appropriation of the Proustian project over the past century—and indeed invites them to become, in turn, as much as they can, the creator of their own work and life choices.
Here emerges an original and particularly timely reflection on the significance of artistic apprenticeship in building individual and collective life, within the context of an increasingly generalized transition of humanity from traditional structures of existence to the state of modernity. The notes, afterword, and summary accompanying the translation aim to assist the reader in gaining awareness of both the coherence that permeates this literary endeavor and the variety of its stakes.
Pavlos Zannas (1929-1989) studied Political Science in Geneva. His multifaceted personality left a mark on the cultural life of our country, particularly in the fields of film art, literature, and literary translation. A political prisoner during the dictatorship, he began translating In Search of Lost Time in the Aegina Prison, a translation that remained unfinished due to his unexpected death.
Panagiotis Poulos (1954) studied Philosophy and Formal Logic in Paris. He taught at the Center for Literary Translation (CTL) of the French Institute of Athens, of which Pavlos Zannas was a founding member, and later, at the European Center for the Translation of Literature and Humanities (EKEMEL), of which he was a founding member himself. Since 2004, he has been teaching Philosophy and Aesthetics at the Athens School of Fine Arts. Along with completing Pavlos Zannas' translation work, he edited the first Greek edition of Proust's novel.
Marcel Proust was born in Paris in 1871 and died there in 1922. He published his collection Pleasures and Days (1896) at a young age and subsequently engaged in translating and commenting on texts by John Ruskin. Following the death of his mother in 1905, he devoted the rest of his life to writing In Search of Lost Time. He received the Prix Goncourt in 1919 with the publication of the second volume titled Within a Budding Grove. His work, now of global significance, is being translated into an increasing number of languages and is among the masterpieces of world literature. The seven volumes of In Search of Lost Time are published by Estia Publications.
