Thursday 7 February 2013

Literary Encounters and Exchanges: A Thirty Year Review


See if you can identify some of the writers
(some of these images have been posted before)
Various items relate to seven Nobel Prize Winners (and to others who were shortlisted), two to Poet Laureates, one to a winner of the Lenin Peace Prize, one to a winner of the Nordic Council's Literature Prize and one to a winner of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature.
I haven't counted these writers' other awards, honours and prizes, such as the Booker Prize.

Which is which?






 Focus on British Literature, Gothenburg Book Fair



Scotland in Sweden



 Alan Sillitoe in Thessaloniki





Ruth Fainlight




Sample Thessaloniki programme





George Savidis





P D James, Thessaloniki



 Ian Rankin, Stockholm




  
My son's book


Yannis Ritsos with Maria Strani-Potts, Thessaloniki, 1984








Mikis Theodorakis, Journals of Resistance




Dimitris Doukaris



Barrie Humphries (rt); Maria Strani-Potts (left), Sydney, Australia



Dr Dannie Abse (rt), Stockholm




Dannie Abse, Jamie McKendrick, Sophie Hannah, Katherine Pierpoint



Poetry Reading, Mediterranean Museum, Stockholm


Poetry reading and blues at Izzy Young's Folklore Centre, Stockholm

 N. Vrettakos (left), D.Doukaris shaking hands with Jim, Athens


President Vaclav Havel (rt)



 Prague Poetry Reading, October 24, 1989


Bohumil Hrabal (rt), in Prague



Jiri Menzel



Jan Vodnansky


Zdenek Hron (above)




Vladimir Merta


Daniela Mrazkova and Vladimir Remes

Ewald Osers


Ian Milner








Peter Calvocoressi


Peter Calvocoressi, C.M. Woodhouse,  Greek historians, friends and family, Northern Greece





Richard Clogg






Lord Michael Pratt



Themistocles Marinos (left). War hero (Distinguished Service) and author



Yannis Ritsos, rt, Thessaloniki


  Demetrius Toteras, Ioannina, 1968




Yusef Komunyakaa (left), Komninos (rt), Judges,
 Poetry Olympics, Sydney Opera House


Tony Harrison, seated, Delphi






Adrian Mitchell


David Malouf, Sydney Book Launch






Dr Miroslav Holub














Fotini Epanomitis



John Fowles













Yannis Ritsos


Seamus Heaney


Alan's reading copy, Mountains and Caverns

Al



 With Margarita Mellberg and Kjell Espmark, Stockholm





Baltic Writers' Centre, Visby Gotland
Anne Sward, Risto Oikarinen,, Ingrid Storholmen and friends


Lena Pasternak

Anne Sward

Visby, Baltic Writers' Centre:
 Anne Sward, Maria Strani-Potts, Risto Oikarinen, Ingrid Storholmen and Gunstein Bakke




Lijana Dejak, Visby


 Jan Henrik Swahn and Margarita Mellberg, Monodendri, Epirus

Ingrid Storholmen and Jan Henrik Swahn at Miramura, Gotland


Ionian Inspires, with Louis de Bernieres and Dr Lee Durrell, Groucho Club, London




Louisa Adjoa Parker


Ingmar Bergman and Harriet Anderrson, Faro












Carol Ann Duffy












 Martin Hilsky and Michael Foot,
 Lecture on Byron, Charles University, Prague

Above, Michael Foot, Prague











Willie Russell (centre) in Thessaloniki
Maria Strani-Potts (left), Professor Jina Politi (right)






Ekaterini Douka-Kabitoglou





Nikos Kokantzis (far right), Sir John and Lady Burgh (left), Thessaloniki


Dimitis Koulourianos, Minister of Economic Affairs, 1982-1983






Eva Ström





Ioana's Romanian translations of some of my poems





 Wole Soyinka in Perth









Gerard Manley Hopkins, Pied Beauty, translated Zdenek Hron, 
from my lecture (Prague, 8 June, 1989), to mark the Centenary of the Death of G.M. Hopkins



 George Seferis



Odysseas Elytis



From Literary Links, Roslyn Russell, Allen and Unwin




Linda Christmas


 
Arcadia Books



Michael Holroyd and Margaret Drabble,
My 'Gothenburg Swedish Farewell, 2004


Johanna Ekstrom


Six Poems, Translations into Swedish, Lyrikvannen, No 4, 2004, by Boel Schenlaer:







Dinner with Jamie Oliver, Stockholm










Ruth Fainlight





Ruth Padel








Samuel Charters (The Country Blues, below)



Paul Oliver



Alexandros Myriallis, Greek poet from Ethiopia. 
From article on Arthur Rimbaud in Harrar.




The big one!










Julian Barnes (rt), Adelaide






Someone I never met, but whom I feel I know, a little. 



Gerald and Lawrence Durrell, a posthumous meeting



Penelope, Lawrence Durrell's daughter, with Maria
 Strani-Potts



Sydney, 16 March 1984



Niki Marangou, Cypriot poet and artist





Pavel Srut


Jaroslav Koran


Ivo Smoldas

Alois Bejblik




Michael Zantovsky





 

Sue Townsend, Adrian Mole in Czech, translated by Helena Cisarova
















Poem tr. Sakis Serefas, Endefktirio, March 2004 



SEE ALSO, The Ethiopian Anthology

The latest anthology project:





My latest book, update, September 2019:



Maria's short stories:




4 comments:

  1. wonderful cavalcade of writers, nostalgic, even. david lodge n malcolm were both secker authors and i worked on changing places and others and malcolm's rates of exchange - brilliant linguistic play.

    very very impressive! C

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks! It's that time of the year (and age?) when one starts to sort things out, to put books, old papers and photographs in some order, so I've been scanning a lot...the garage is full of files and boxes of papers, and the photo albums seldom get opened, so it makes sense to scan the more interesting or amusing old photos.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's had its moments, when recollected in tranquility!

    ReplyDelete