Plenary session 24 February 2022
Ladies and gentlemen,
An emblematic figure for Greek literature, Lefkios Zafeiriou, passed away on 19 February at the age of 73. His funeral will be held at public expense on Thursday 3 March 2022.
The Cypriot writer and scholar, who brightened Cypriot literature with his presence and his work, was born in Larnaca and studied Greek literature at the University of Athens while attending journalism courses.
On his return to Cyprus in 1974 he worked in secondary schools, at the Cyprus Pedagogical Academy and during the two years 2004-2006 at the secondary school of Rizokarpassos under Turkish occupation. Subsequently, he was seconded to the Programme Development Service of the Ministry of Education and Culture, where he wrote an updated textbook on Cypriot literature. In recent years he taught at the Nicosia Evening High School.
Lefkios Zafiriou was a co-founder of the Cyprus Writers' Union in 1978 and participated in the editorial teams of the literary magazines "Point", "Akti" and "Ylandron".
He first appeared in Cypriot letters in 1975 with the poetry collection "Poems" and in his literary career, apart from poetry, he was involved in short stories, novels, essays, studies and research, publishing poems, literary texts and studies in many magazines and publications. He was awarded the State Prize for Young Writers for his poetry collection "Almost Nidizones" and the State Poetry Prize for his collection "The Sadness of the Afternoon". He was also awarded state prizes for his novel "The Gangsters", which depicts the difficult experiences of his childhood, and for his short story collection "With reverence and with regret".
Lefkios Zafiriou's contribution to Calvinist studies was decisive. In particular, he re-edited Andreas Kalvos' latent ode "Elpis patridos", which had been found in the library of the University of Glasgow, and collaborated in the publication of Andreas Kalvos' "Correspondence" by the Benaki Museum, He published texts with new information on the life of the modern Greek poet and published the book 'The life and work of Andreas Kalvos', which was awarded the Prize of the Academy of Athens - Costas and Eleni Ouranis Foundation.
He also wrote texts on other great poets such as Dionysios Solomos, Yannis Ritsos, Odysseas Elytis, Nikiforos Vrettakos, Kostas Montis, etc. Translations of his poems and prose have been published in many languages and several of his poems and prose have been included in Cypriot, Greek and international literary anthologies. Honouring his overall contribution to Cypriot and Greek letters, the board of the Cyprus Writers' Union unanimously decided to award the "G.F. Pierides" Prize for the year 2022 to Lefkios Zafiriou.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Today, as the Parliament, we honour a truly excellent writer and man, whose death creates an irreplaceable gap in the intellectual life of the country. The work he leaves behind is undoubtedly a valuable legacy and compass in the current troubled times we are experiencing.
Expressing our sincere condolences to the family and relatives of the deceased, I invite you to observe a one-minute silence in his memory.
(EX)
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