Greek poet and translator Jenny Mastoraki died on Tuesday. She was 75.
Born on February 21, 1949, Mastoraki was one of the most important artists of the 1970s-80s generation which marked the return to democracy in Greece after the fall of the military regime in 1974.
Mastoraki left her indelible mark on 20th century Greek poetry and translation setting new foundations and experimenting with new literary fields.
She studied Byzantine and Medieval Philology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and spoke English, German, Spanish, Italian.
Mastoraki first began publishing her work as a student during the 1967 military coup, which was subject to censorship. In addition to her first her 1971 “The Synaxarium of Holy Youth”, she published four volumes of poetry in 1972, 1978, 1983, and 1989. She later focused on her work as a literary translator and is mostly known for her translation into Greek of J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye”, among many others.
Mastoraki’s works have been translated into many languages and she received in 1989 Columbia University’s Thornton Niven Wilder Award for her translations.
“The loss of Jenny Mastoraki deprives us of one of the greatest figures of contemporary Greek literature. A representative of the ’70s Generation, she leaves us with a poetic corpus that crossed borders and was published in many foreign languages. Her work is distinguished by its personal imprint, highlighting the inseparable relationship between writing and reading, as well as the author’s long-term experiential involvement with language, history, and literature,” said Greek Culture Minister Lina Mendoni expressing her condolences to Mastoraki’s family.
