Ritsos e Monemvasià

Yannis Ritsos, one of the greatest contemporary Greek poets, was born in Monemvasià in 1909 and maintained his links to this village throughout his intense and adventurous life. At the end of the suffering he experienced between prison and confinement, he returned to the village and with it he rebuilt a new path of respect and love.

“My lady Monemvasia, my stone ship. You have a thousand bows and a thousand sails. You are motionless and you allow me to sail around the world.” 

With this metaphor, Yannis Ritsos describes the vision that anyone who looks at Monemvasia from the Byzantine walls of the upper city experiences. A mass of ochre houses dozing off on a pink-tinted grey rock overlooking the sea. The “Rocca” looks like a ship on the point of putting out to sea: perhaps because the numerous domes of the churches resemble full sails stretched out to the winds. Or perhaps because the walls surrounding the town look like the parapet of one of the ships, which in the past centuries carried goods to the four corners of the Mediterranean.

The collection of Yannis Ritsos’s poems dedicated to his hometown are the fragments of a poetic journey that blends poetic synthesis with the simplest of human feelings, that of intense love for one’s homeland. A love that flows rich in ancient wealth and new languages made of sharp, poignant images.

A collection that was missing and that as a result of the work of Massimo Cazzulo, who also took care of the critical and historical analysis, completes the considerably rich index that binds us to this contemporary, great voice of world poetry.

PLEASE NOTE: The text is available in both Epub and Mobi format. The files are not on the site but will be sent to the buyer within 2 hours from the time of purchase between 08.00-20.00.