16 Facts About Giorgos Seferis

Giorgos Seferis was one of the most important Greek poets of the 20th century, and a Nobel laureate.

Giorgos Seferis was a career diplomat in the Greek Foreign Service, culminating in his appointment as Ambassador to the UK, a post which he held from 1957 to 1962.

Giorgos Seferis's father, Stelios Seferiadis, was a lawyer, and later a professor at the University of Athens, as well as a poet and translator in his own right.

Giorgos Seferis was a staunch Venizelist and a supporter of the demotic Greek language over the formal, official language.

In 1914 the family moved to Athens, where Giorgos Seferis completed his secondary school education.

Giorgos Seferis continued his studies in Paris from 1918 to 1925, studying law at the Sorbonne.

Giorgos Seferis returned to Athens in 1925 and was admitted to the Royal Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the following year.

Giorgos Seferis married Maria Zannou on April 10,1941 on the eve of the German invasion of Greece.

Giorgos Seferis continued to serve in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and held diplomatic posts in Ankara, Turkey and London.

Giorgos Seferis was appointed minister to Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq, and was Royal Greek Ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1961, the last post before his retirement in Athens.

Giorgos Seferis received many honours and prizes, among them honorary doctoral degrees from the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Thessaloniki, and Princeton.

Giorgos Seferis immediately fell in love with the island, partly because of its resemblance, in its landscape, the mixture of populations, and in its traditions, to his childhood summer home in Skala.

Giorgos Seferis changed the title in the 1959 edition of his poems.

Giorgos Seferis was the first Greek to receive the prize.

Giorgos Seferis did not live to see the end of the junta in 1974 as a direct result of Turkey's invasion of Cyprus, which had itself been prompted by the junta's attempt to overthrow Cyprus's president, Archbishop Makarios III.

Giorgos Seferis is buried at the First Cemetery of Athens.