paperback 5.5/8.5
422 pages
978-1-9267635-6-9
$32.95
description
Greek mythology is a great treasure Manolis has inherited. Vast and fascinating, like that of India, the mythology has birthed some of the greatest epics and plays of world literature, and continues to influence new art and writing. It is often credited with shaping the Western culture. In poems selected from his book Second Advent of Zeus, Manolis acknowledges his debt to the mythology by attributing poems to great mythical characters like Zeus, Athena, Hera, Psyche, Eros, Apollo, Aphrodite and others. However, he doesn’t recreate the myths in a modern context or uses them directly in the poems. Rather, he looks up to them for inspiration as his poems show:
“And I showed Zeus my first verse”
“Athena smiled at me when I observed
that everything fitted in its position
nothing jutted out of place”
~ Ajmer Rode, poet
.
about the author
Emmanuel Aligizakis, (Manolis) Emmanuel Aligizakis, (Manolis) is a Cretan poet and author. He’s the most prolific writer-poet of the Hellenic diaspora with over 80 books published in more than a dozen different countries and in eleven different languages. At the age of eleven he transcribed the nearly 500 year old
romantic poem Erotokritos, now released in a limited edition of 100 numbered copies and made available for collectors of such rare books at 5,000 dollars Canadian: the most expensive book of its kind to this day.
He was recently appointed an honorary instructor and fellow of the International Arts Academy, and awarded a Master’s for the Arts in Literature. He is recognized for his ability to convey images and thoughts in a rich and evocative way that tugs at something deep within the reader. Born in the village of Kolibari on the island of Crete in 1947, he moved with his family at a young age to Thessaloniki and then to Athens, where he received his Bachelor of Arts in
Political Sciences from the Panteion University of Athens.
After graduation, he served in the armed forces for two years and emigrated to Vancouver in 1973, where he worked as an iron worker, train labourer, taxi driver, and stock broker, and studied English Literature at Simon Fraser University. He has written three novels and numerous collections of poetry, which are steadily being released as published works.
His articles, poems and short stories in both Greek and English have appeared in various magazines and newspapers in Canada, United States, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Australia, Jordan, Serbia and Greece. His poetry has been translated in Romanian, Swedish, German, Hungarian, Ukrainian, French, Portuguese, Arabic, Turkish, Serbian, Russian, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, languages and has been published in book form or in magazines in various countries.
He now lives in White Rock, where he spends his time writing, gardening, traveling, and heading Libros Libertad, an unorthodox and independent publishing company which he founded in 2006 with the goal of publishing literary books.
His translation book “George Seferis-Collected Poems” was shortlisted for the Greek National Literary Awards the highest literary recognition of Greece.
In September 2017 he was awarded the First Poetry Prize of the Mihai Eminescu International Poetry Festival in Craiova, Romania. He was nominated for the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature by the Mihai Eminescu International Academy of Craiova, Romania.
Libros Libertad 