Decaválles, Andónis 1920–

(Andónis George Decaválles)

PERSONAL:

Born January 25, 1920, in Alexandria, Egypt; son of George Andónis Manganaris and Maria Decaválles; married Kaliope Cokinos, March 4, 1934; children: Anna-Nausika, Maria-Daphne, Georgia-Artemis. Ethnicity: "Greek." Education: National University Athens, Greece, LL.M., 1947; Northwestern University, M.A., 1957; Ph.D., 1960. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Greek Orthodox. Hobbies and other interests: Poetry, music.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Madison, NJ. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Attorney in Athens, Greece, 1948-54; Radio Athens, Athens, staff member, 1950-54; University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Amherst, visiting lecturer in English, 1958-59; City College of the City University of New York, New York, NY, lecturer, 1960; New York University, New York, NY, lecturer in classics, 1960-61; Fairleigh Dickinson University, Rutherford, NJ, began as assistant professor, became professor of English and composition, 1969-92. Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, lecturer, 1960-61. Advisory editor, Literary Review; consultant to Library of Congress.

MEMBER:

Modern Language Association of America, Modern Greek Studies Association, College English Association.

AWARDS, HONORS:

American Council of Learned Societies research grant, 1968; First Poetry Prize, Academy of Athens, 1977, for Armoi, Karavia, Lytra; silver medal, Siphnian Cultural Association, 1987.

WRITINGS:

T.S. Eliot: Ta Tessera Kouarteta, Kedros Publishing (Athens, Greece), 1953, reprinted, 1988.

The Voice of Cyprus: An Anthology of Cypriot Literature, October House (New York, NY), 1965.

Okeanidhes (Oceanids), Ikaros (Athens, Greece), 1970.

Armoi, Karavia, Lytra (title means "Joints, Ships, Ransoms"), Ekdhosis ton Philon (Athens, Greece), 1976.

Pandelis Prevelakis and the Value of a Heritage, North Central Publishing (Minneapolis, MN), 1981.

Ransoms to Time: Selected Poems, translated and introduced by Kimon Friar, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press (Cranbury, NJ), 1985.

Isaghoyi sto loghotehniko ergho tou Pandeli Prevelaki, Kedros Publishing (Athens, Greece), 1985.

An mas pliyósi o ílios (title means "If the Sun Wounds Us"), Dhiátton (Athens, Greece), 1992.

Odysseus Elytis: From the Golden to the Silver Poem, Pella Publishing (New York, NY), 1996.

(Translator into Greek) W.H. Auden (poetry), Kedros Publishing (Athens, Greece), 2002.

Also author of Nimule-Gondokoro, 1949; Akis, 1950; "Amerikaniki Piisi," broadcast by Voice of America, 1961. Work represented in anthologies, including An Anthology of Modern Greek Poetry, edited by Nanos Valaoritis and Thanasis Maskaleris, Tallisman House, 2003.

SIDELIGHTS:

Born in Alexandria, Egypt, Andónis Decaválles soon moved to Siphnos, Greece with his parents. He immigrated to the United States to attend graduate school and became professor Fairleigh Dickinson University. In Ransoms to Time: Selected Poems, commented Rachel Hadas in the New York Times Book Review, Decaválles's poems "combine wryness, modesty, joy and grief," as well as "retriev[ing] meaning from exile, loss and death." Reviewing the work in the Times Literary Supplement, John Taylor noted that Decaválles's poetry "celebrates the Aegean See, his ancestral island of Siphnos, the coastal landscape of New England" and his wife and three daughters.

An mas pliyósi o ílios was Decaválles's sixth volume of poetry in approximately forty years. M. Byron Raizis, a reviewer in World Literature Today, observed that this volume "constitutes yet a further step in the direction of artistic originality and thematic exploration." Raizis called Decaválles's lyrics "nostalgic, touching, always genuine and delicately wrought."

Odysseus Elytis: From the Golden to the Silver Poem is a collection of essays published by Decaválles over two decades, essays that reflect on the author's experiences working with Elytis in Greek radio during the early 1950s. Raizis, stated that Decaválles's "articles … read and function like a cross between the formal and informal essays by Coleridge and Lamb."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Procos, Andónis, Andónis Manganaris-Decaválles kai I piisi tou (title means "Andónis Manganaris-Decaválles and His Poetry"), [Athens, Greece], 1994.

PERIODICALS

Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora, Volume 28, number 2, 2002, A. Stefanidou, "A Cosmopolitan Exile's Nostos: Modernity, Memory, and Myth in Andónis Decaválles's Poetry."

New York Times Book Review, April 28, 1985, Rachel Hadas, "Foreign Parts and Homelands," p. 33.

World Literature Today, spring, 1993, M. Byron Raizis, review of An mas pliyósi o ílios, pp. 417-418; winter, 1996, M. Byron Raizis, review of Odysseus Elytis: From the Golden to the Silver Poem, p. 216.