Read the handwritten poem (Greek)

Foreword

• Costas Montis was born on February 18, 1914 in Famagusta, and died on March 1, 2004 in his home in Nicosia, surrounded by his family. He has received numerous honors and awards throughout his life, and his books have been translated into several languages. Costas Montis has received honorary doctorates from both the University of Cyprus and the University of Athens. He has been nominated for the Nobel Prize, and in 2000 he was declared Corresponding Member of the Academy of Athens, the highest honor conferred upon intellectual creators living outside Greece.

• In support of his proposal to the Academy of Athens, Professor Nicholas Konomis included the following: "Costas Montis is one of the greatest living Greek poets, and certainly one who renewed in a unique way modernistic lyric poetry, and enriched modern Greek poetry from the point of view of Cyprus. With his uninterrupted literary creation of 70 years, he has been able to depict artistically the authentic rhythms, the temperature, and the action of the deepest historical and emotional fluctuations of the soul and breath of Cyprus and her people. In his extremely powerful work he has recorded every vibration of the island (erotic, social, political), and all the thoughts of the people of Cyprus have been set down..... He has made use of the whole wealth of the linguistic, historical, and cultural tradition of greater Hellenism, and entrenched in his work, with unprecedented poetic force, the indelible character of the deep-rooted values of the Greek nation."