About Yiannis Ritsos
Yiannis Ritsos was a Greek poet and communist and an active member of the Greek Resistance during World War II. While he disliked being regarded as a political poet, he has been called "the great poet of the Greek left". In 1935, he published Pyramids; these two works sought to achieve a fragile balance between faith in the future, founded on the Communist ideal, and personal despair. When he won the Lenin Peace Prize in 1975, he declared "this prize is more important for me than the Nobel." His poetry was banned at times in Greece due to his left wing beliefs. During the Axis occupation of Greece (1941–1945) Ritsos became a member of the EAM (National Liberation Front) and authored several poems for the Greek Resistance.
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