Alki Zei ΑΛΚΗ ΖΈΗ (Άλκη Ζέη)
Born 1923, Athens Died 2020, Athens
If Ι chose to write mainly for children, it is because I wanted to share with them the significant moments my generation has gone through and contribute to the collective memory. (https://www.alkizei.com/en/)
2023 marks the hundredth year of the birth of Greek writer Alki Zei who gained readers all over the world and led a life almost as amazing as the characters she created. Her books for young people created a whole new genre in Greece. In her honour, the Greek Cultural Ministry has named 2023 as the year of Alki Zei.
Because of her ability to paint a picture of an entire society by introducing unforgettable minor characters along with her protagonists, some have called her Greece’s Charles Dickens. Her first novel Wildcat Under Glass (Το Καπλάνι της Βιτρίνας), is autobiographical and told from the perspective of a young girl in Samos in the era of the Metaxas dictatorship. Its charm and simplicity make it a compelling window into an era that our generation can scarcely fathom, let alone comprehend.
Her story is an epic one, spanning 97 years of Greek history: years when a palimpsest of political views were held in the face of a dictatorship, an occupation, and a civil war, years when choices made would have implications which could not have been foreseen at the time, and years when the word patriotism meant very different things to different people.
Her life would fascinate even if she were not a great writer. But the fact that she is makes this period in Greek history come alive. We are fortunate that Wildcat Under Glass and many other of her novels have been translated into English (and other languages as well). They are a great read in any language.
Her Life
Alki was the second child of Zinonos and Ellis Zei. Her father was born on Andros but grew up in Heraklion, Crete. Her mother was from Samos, an island where Alki with her sister Lenoula would spend wonderful childhood summers with their grandfather and aunt. Alki’s grandfather was an avid Venizelist full of liberal and republican ideas. He was a teacher of ancient Greek in Smyrna but, immediately the school year ended, he would head for Samos taking his extensive library of ancient writings along with him.
Alki with her older sister Lenoula
When their mother fell ill with tuberculosis, the children remained in Samos for four years with their aunt and a grandfather who granted them far more freedom for ‘adventures’ than they might have otherwise had. Her grandfather would constantly regale them with stories of the ancient heroes of history and myth. It was this idyllic period that she would immortalize in Wildcat Under Glass. Alki recalled their sorrow at being recalled to Athens and a home dominated by their strict bank manager father who would never have agreed to escapades in Athens like the ones they had enjoyed on the island. In fact, he did not even like them playing outside of their home. As Alki’s alter ego in Wildcat Under Glass would have said: Boring...
In 1937, the girls were enrolled in the Ionic School, a pro Metaxas establishment. His fascist government (1) wanted to enrol all students in their version of Hitler Youth, an organization called EON. This did not sit well with their father but open dissent to the Metaxas dictatorship could lead to real trouble, including prison.
Whereas Alki’s sister Lenoula was seen as the vivacious beauty of the family, Alki was the writer and the bookworm. She would memorize her favourite poets by heart and adored the books of Penelope Delta. She honed her earliest skills by writing letters for the household help in sentences that must have astonished their recipients: and at night, the moment my head hits the pillow I want to weep but tears do not inundate my eyelashes, they have been dried by the lava of my yearning for home!... Purple prose to be sure, but apparently very much appreciated. These maids were her very first fans.
Fortunately for Alki and her future career, her father enrolled her in the Andonopoulos School for the last three years of high school. There, Alki was taught by Eleni Theochari-Peraki (1916-85) an art teacher who had studied in Paris and whose special love was the puppet theatre. The puppet theatre was a very popular art form in Greece from 1890 until well into the nineteen thirties and forties, - and not just for children, or for the beloved Karaghiozis shadow theatre. Rod puppets and hand puppets had become a part of the popular culture for adults and children alike. In fact, there was a period when puppet theatre was far more popular and drew audiences larger than live theatre. Although Alki had no real aptitude for art, Eleni had read one of her stories in the school newspaper and wanted her to join her class as a writer. These puppet productions were always in need of new plots.
In 1941-2, Alki wrote the “Weepers” a parody of a section of the Odyssey (Weepers was a pun on the word epic in Greek, so we miss the joke in English) in which Circe was depicted as an intellectual surrealist and Scyllla and Charybdis as a gypsy and an Afrikan.
One character she created turned out to have a lot of staying power. He was the little sailor Klouvios Κλούβιος and would became one of the main characters of the Athens Puppet Theatre Barba Mytoussis which Eleni Paraki had founded in 1939; he even made it into the era of Television.
Eleni Paraki was associated with many distinguished writers and poets of the time: Nikos Gatsos, Odysseos Elytis, Marios Ploritis, Andreas Embririkos, to name a few. Also in that distinguished company was Alki’s future husband - writer, translator and director Georgios Sevastikoglou.
The puppet theatre continued its productions during the German occupation, entertaining wounded soldiers as well as the children lined up at the many soup kitchens during those terrible times. Nonetheless, Alki was young, and had this to say about the occupation:
We lived the horror of war every day but, from what I remember, and we could say this of all of our generation, they were the best years of our life. No matter how strange that seems. Because there was a liveliness, a life we were leading to the full: we had dreams, we believed we could be small stones in building the path to our freedom; we lived a wonderful life and that way we forgot the hunger, the fear, and the danger.(2)
During a critical period in her development, journalist and writer Dido Sotiriou entered into their life ‘like a cyclone’ according to Alki. Dido was a friend of Alki’s mother and had married her twin bother. Alki would remember meeting her aunt.
Within 15 days she had spread her web of charm over the entire family. She even managed to ‘captivate’ my father who did not at all agree with her ideas. Myself and Lenoula were moved by the fact that she spoke to us as if we were adults and paid so much attention to us. It was not just her presence as a person; she opened for you windows to the world, bringing books, telling stories, and pushing you to be your best self: (3)
Dido had published a periodical under her own name and Alki decided to create her own small publication, The Crazy World (Ο Αστείος Κόσμος) in which she satirized her own family. If Alki attempted to write about things beyond her own experience, Dido would advise her to write only about things that she knew, advice that Alki would take to heart for the rest of her life.
Alki, the War, and the Resistance
Dido introduced Alki to the left wing resistance movement (EAM-ELAS) during the occupation. She organized her mother and sister as well, although not, apparently her father. They would meet at their home when her father was at work or very late at night. Dido had become an editor of Rizospastis, the newspaper of the communist party. Alki came to know its director Costas Karageorgis because he would join Dido at secret meetings late at night in the family living room while the sisters pretended to be asleep on nearby sofas. (4)
Of course, not everyone who joined Eam-Elas were communists. In the fight against the Germans there were a vast range of political views in the leftist resistance, but it is true that many intellectuals at that time, including Alki's circle, held very leftwing or communist points of view. This was especially true as the war was coming to a close and it became clear that conservative forces were going to be championed by the allies (the British in particular). This post war clash of ideals would lead to the civil war and its inevitable aftermath of hatred and exile.
Ordinary life goes on, even during a war. Alki attended the School of Philosophy at the Athens University and, because of her relationship with Georgos Sevastikoglou, she was introduced into the world of live theatre. Georgos worked with his friend Karolos Koun at the now famous Art Theatre, translated many of the plays produced there, and also worked with the popular acting troupe of Marika Kotopouli. Alki even enrolled in a theatre school for a few years, but Georgos steered her back to writing. He felt that was her strength.
Alki with Ellie Lambeti at a theatre performance
1945, The Civil War and Exile
When the war ended in 1945, it almost seemed as life might return to some kind of normalcy. Through the efforts of the French Institue in Athens, Georgos had won a scholarship to study in France and the couple married so that Alki could go with him. In the end, he did not go because he had received orders from the Communist party (KKE) to remain in Greece and to continue his work in the theatre. His decision to obey that order would change their lives. In 1947, when Georgos was ordered to present himself at army headquarters, he knew that could only mean trouble. He first went into hiding, then left the country for Europe but returned at the war’s end at Grammos (5) to help create a documentary on the 'democratic Army'. When they were defeated, he fled to Tashkent in the Soviet Union.
For a long time, Alki had no idea where her husband was. She finally did get a message telling her to try and join him in Tashkent. But when her own summons to appear at the police station arrived, she decided to hide. The only house willing to take her in was that of Doctor Linos Politis, a man who had five children of his own. After four days Dido found her there and convinced her that exile for her was better than the doctor’s entire family being sent to jail. Dido herself had been jailed when her children were small. So Alki turned herself in and was exiled to Chios for a year before being allowed back in Athens. (6)
A Tactical Divorce:
Getting a passport to leave Greece was impossible for Alki because of her husband, so she published a divorce notice in the newspapers. When she re-applied, she was granted a passport, but only for Italy. She spent two years there and joined the theatre group of Eduardo De Fillipo, even playing Antigone in one of his productions. A right wing uncle did send her some money although he did so while deriding her ‘stupid’ politics. She finally managed to get a student travel visa by enrolling in a fake ‘acting school’ supposedly run by De Fillipo. She then went to France, Belgium, Prague and then on to Tashkent. The couple had been separated for five years and were now in exile together, -maybe for life.
As Antigone
The Political Climate in Greece and the Political Exiles after the Civil War
This period of Greek history is a sore subject for many in Greece, and still hotly debated in a country where left and right political positions are still emotionally charged topics. The Metaxas regime (1936-1941) had outlawed the Communist party before the war even started and, when it did, the resistance movement was divided into right and left contingents. Hatreds and animosities were solidified by the scramble for power after the German occupation and quickly developed into a fully fledged civil war. After the Nationalist government prevailed, no one was in the mood for reconciliation.
A law was passed in 1947 which forbade all those who had fought against the Nationalist government during the civil war to ever return to Greece and these ‘traitors’ were stripped of their citizenship. In 1948, another law confiscated all properties in Greece of these newly ‘non-Greeks’.
In 1952 the government of Constantinos Karamanlis upheld these laws. The rationale of the conservative government was that the return of the refugees could instigate civil unrest or even civil war. It seemed inconceivable to the government at the time that these exiles could possibly reintegrate into Greek life.
The Centre Union, the Party of Georgios Papandreou which gained power in 1964 did create hope in the minds of some exiles that this situation might change and, although Papandreaou precluded a mass return of the refugees, he said he would consider their return to Greece on an individual basis. (7)
The Junta intervened between 1967 and 1974 when, in 1974, Karamanlis did legalize the Communist Party in Greece, still nothing was done about the exiles.
Just to give you an idea of the magnitude of the issue over time: by 1981 there were about 35,000 Greek exiles; 8,000 in Czechoslovakia, 8,000 in Poland, 7,000 in the Soviet Union, 4,000 in Bulgaria, 3,500 in Romania, and 1,500 in Eastern Germany. If Alki’s own memories are anything to go by, these exiles spent a great deal of their time yearning for home and word of their families.(8)
This was the situation when Andreas Papandrou’s Pasok Party took over and finally a government was willing to recognize this group. Georgos Gennimatas, speaking in the Greek Parliament said:
To remain in the past means a return to the past. It means servitude and humiliation, decline with no end in sight. From the ruins (of the civil war) we have to create a new foundation, a new plan to give the Greek people the ability to get ahead and thrive.
In 1982 Andreas Papandreou announced the free return of the political refugees and the return of citizenship to all who were Greek by birth.
Alki
in the Soviet Union and Then Back to Greece
In 1956, Alki’s daughter Irini was born in Taskent. Two years later, the couple received permission to move to Moscow. There Alki studied cinematography and Georgos studied at Moscow’s Theatre Academy after which he became a well known director and translator in Russia.
| The Family |
Alki with Georgos in Moscow
They had made a life in Moscow but it was one that began with no connection to Greece. Nostalgia for home remained and, with this homesickness as a backdrop, Alki began to write about her childhood. This book was Wildcat Under Glass. When reading it now, the story seems so effortless and exudes such easy charm that it is hard to remember that her husband and strictest critic, would read drafts and send her back to rewrite passages again and again.
The book was completed in 1962 and she sent it to the Themelio publishing house in Greece. For two years she had no idea of its fate. It was only when she was allowed to return to Greece in 1964 that she saw her novel in the window of a bookstore.
Of course, many conservatives (considering the source as well as the content) were scandalized by her novel saying it was against religion, against the nation, and not suitable reading for young people. Not everyone felt that way. Nitsa Charvati, a teacher, was married to an American writer (Edward Fenton) and he was so impressed with Wildcat Under Glass that he translated it into English and it was published in America. From there it travelled to Scandinavian countries and even to Japan. Alki’s writing was praised in foreign countries before her book became a classic in Greece. Such was the power of politics to affect every aspect of culture in Greece from the civil war, into the 1980s and even, to some extent, today.
In 1968 Wildcat Under Glass won the ALA Notable Book award in the United states. In 1969 it appeared on the Horn Book Honour list and on and on. For a full list of Alki’s subsequent awards and honours, see footnote number (9).
In the years 1962 and 1963, the last years of her exile, some Greeks, under the aegis of the Greek-Soviet Association began to travel to Moscow; people like Odysseus Elytis and Andreas Embrikos among others. Alki would recall that the conversations would always be about home.
In 1964 Aliki and her children were allowed to return. Georgos was allowed back in 1965. Their stay was short lived because in 1967, yet another dictatorship forced them into exile (voluntary this time) to Paris. This exile was less terrible because the Greeks in France did have contact with those at home. Paris was the nerve centre of anti-Junta Greeks with the likes of Melina Merkouri and Constantine Karamanlis in residence. Whether on the right or the left of the political spectrum, Greeks would gather together, in harmony against the dictatorship. There was an irony here. Karamanlis, who had denied their return to Greece in the fifties, was their greatest hope for a return if the Junta collapsed. This fact really amazed her son Petros - how the same man could be a villain in the 50s and a great hope in the sixties and early seventies. Greek history is nothing if not complicated!
In 1971 Ο Μεγάλος Περίπατος του Πέτρου (Petros’ War) was published. This time the subject was the German occupation. The book was translated into French and hailed by Mitterand as a must read book for students trying to understand the Nazi occupation. Alki would speak to school children in France who had studied the book. When one student told her he hated the ending because a German had shot a student who was a ‘good boy’, Alki pointed out that good people got executed too.
Alki and her husband returned to Greece in 1981 and subsequently split their time between the two countries. Many other books followed: Boots and Pumps (1975), Uncle Plato (1975), Near the Rail Tracks (1977), One April Sunday (1978) and Hannibal’s Shoes (1979). Her books won many awards, at home and abroad.
Georgos with Alki, Irini, and Petros. Irini lives in Belgium today and Petros is a director
In 1987, Achilles’ Fiancée was published, this time not for children; a poignant story about the decades and lost dreams between 1940 and 1970.
Georgos died in 1991. He did not live to see Alki receive the Greek award for her book Tina’s Web.
In 2013, she published her autobiography: With a Faber Number Two Pencil.
Alki spent a great deal of time travelling to schools and discussing her books with her many fans. Her books have been translated into more than 20 languages.
She died in 2020 at the age of 97 and was buried, at her request, in her husband’s family grave in the First Cemetery. There is talk of a suitable statue being erected in front of an Athens public library. She deserves that, and much, much more.
The Family Grave of
The Sevastikoglou Family with Alki's name engraved on the top
Section 2, Number 590B
The Map
Footnotes:
(1) Metaxas considered himself as a fascist and was proud of it.
(2) (3) Νιάρχος Θανάσης Θ Αλκη Ζέη, Η συνισταμένη των ανοησιών της υφηλίου
(3) Διβάνη Λένα, Ονειρεύτηκα τη Διδώ,σελ.135.
(4) See https://www.politeianet.gr/books/karagiorgi-maria-idiotiki-kostas-karagiorgis-1905-1955-203635 for more on the editor of Risodpastis
(5) Νιάρχος Θανάσης Θ Αλκη Ζέη, Η συνισταμένη των ανοησιών της υφηλίου.
(6) Άλκη Ζέη: «Αχ , λέω, αν ήταν εδώ η Διδώ Σωτηρίου, θα τη ρώταγα». Exile was such a popular way to get rid of people the government objected to. One wonders what the solution would be today in the age of the internet?
(7) Βαμβούρη Χριστίνα, Ιόνιος Εταιρία Ιστορικών Μελετών: Ζητήματα επαναπόδοσης της ελληνικής ιθαγένειας και περιουσιών στους Έλληνες πολιτικούς πρόσφυγες του εμφυλίου πολέμου, file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/24847-433-66991-1-10-20200925.pdf
(8) So many of these exiles dreamed of home even after years abroad. I have a friend whose father fled as a teenager and after many adventures settled in Czechoslovakia but refused to try to gain citizenship there either for himself or his family because he considered himself a Greek citizen.
(9)Awards and Distinctions
- 1968 ALA Notable Book selection (USA) – Wildcat under glass
- 1969 Horn Book Honor List selection (USA) – Wildcat under glass
- 1970 ALSC Mildred L. Batchelder (USA) – Wildcat under glass
- 1974 ALSC Mildred L. Batchelder (USA) – Petros’ war
- 1980 ALSC Mildred L. Batchelder (USA) – Near the rail tracks
- 1993 Children’s Literature State Prize (GREECE) – Theatre for children
- 2002 Premio letterario Giuseppe Acerbi (ITALY) – Achilles’ fiancée
- 2003 Greek IBBY Best YA Prize (GREECE) – Tina’s web
- 2003 “Diavazo” magazine Best YA Literature Prize (GREECE) – Tina’s web
- Nominated for the 2004 Hans Christian Andersen Award by IBBY Greece
- Nominated (2004/2009/2015) for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for Literature by the Hellenic Authors Society and IBBY Greece
- 2005 Prix des Embouquineurs (FRANCE) – Tina’s web
- 2007 Premio Andersen – Il mondo dell’infanzia (ITALY) – Wildcat under glass
- 2008 shortlisted for the “Diavazo” Magazine (GREECE) Best children book Prize – Granddad the liar
- 2009 Tina’s web shortlisted among five finalists for the Marsh Award (UK)
- 2010 Prix Littéraire des Jeunes Européens – Prix des Étudiants Francophones (FRANCE) – Granddad the liar
- 2010 Athens Academy Award for her body of work
- 2012 Honorary Doctorate of Cyprus University
- 2014 Honorary Doctorate of Salonika Aristotle University
- 2014 Readers Prize of PUBLIC Bookstores – With a Faber No 2 pencil
- 2015 Decoration by the President of the Greek Republic with the Golden Cross of the Order of Honour
- 2015 Honorary doctorate of Patras University, Department of Human & Social Sciences
- 2015 Commander of the Order of Arts & Letters by the French Ministry of Culture
- Granddad the liar shortlisted for the 2018 Premio Strega Ragazze e Ragazzi (ITALY)
- 2020 Elniplex Gold List (GREECE) – A child from nowhere (GREECE)
- A child from nowhere shortlisted for the 2020 Greek IBBY Award (GREECE)
- A child from nowhere shortlisted for the 2021 Greek State Prize for Children’s Literature (GREECE)
- 2021 Elniplex Gold List (GREECE) – Petros’ war Graphic Novel
- 2021 Greek IBBY Illustration Award (GREECE) – Petros’ war Graphic Novel
- Red Fox’s Best of 2021 List (GREECE) – Wildcat under glass Graphic Novel
- Wildcat under glass Graphic Novel shortlisted for the “Anagnostis” Magazine 2022 Best Illustrated Children’s Book (GREECE)
- Best Comic of 2022 by the Greek Comics Awards (GREECE) – Wildcat under glass Graphic Novel
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