Costas Taktsis ( el, Κώστας Ταχτσής ; 8 October 1927 – 27 August 1988) was a Greek writer. Described as a 'landmark of post-war literature in Greece', Taktsis wrote ''The Third Wedding'' ( el, Το τρίτο στεφάνι, To tríto stefáni, links=no) partly in Australia. The book unfolds in the years before and after World War II through the flowing personal narrative of two women: Ekavi and Nina, who speak in a direct and everyday language about what they live through. Unable to find a publisher in Greece he published it at his own expense in 1962. The book has been translated into 18 languages. The French edition was released by

Éditions Gallimard Éditions Gallimard (), formerly Éditions de la Nouvelle Revue Française (1911–1919) and Librairie Gallimard (1919–1961), is one of the leading French book publishers. In 2003 it and its subsidiaries published 1,418 titles. Founded by Ga ...

in 1967, translated by

Jacques Lacarrière Jacques Lacarrière (; 2 December 1925 – 17 September 2005) was a French writer, born in Limoges. He studied moral philosophy, classical literature, and Hindu philosophy and literature. Professionally, he was known as a prominent critic, jour ...

. In 1969 it became the first Greek novel published by

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.John Chioles, was published as ''The Third Wedding Wreath'', by Hermes in 1985. Many directors including

Michael Cacoyannis Michael Cacoyannis ( el, Μιχάλης Κακογιάννης, ''Michalis Kakogiannis''; 11 June 1922 – 25 July 2011), sometimes credited as Michael Yannis, was a Greek Cypriot theatre and film director, writer, producer, and actor. ...

unsuccessfully tried to produce a film based on the book. Greek broadcaster

ANT1 TV Antenna, better known as ANT1, is a television network airing in Greece. The alternate spelling is wordplay in Greek; ''ena'' (ένα) is the Greek number ''1'' (one), thus ''ANT1'' is pronounced the same as ''Antenna'' (Αντέννα). It laun ...

produced a television series based on the book in 1995 with Nena Menti in the role of Nina and Lida Protopsalti as Ekavi. A 4-hour adaption for the theatre, directed by Stamatis Fassoulis was produced by the

National Theatre of Greece The National Theatre of Greece () is based in Athens, Greece. History The first permanent theatre in modern Greece had been the Boukoura Theatre from 1840, but it had difficulty in managing its operation and stood empty for long periods of t ...

in 2009–2010. Multi-lingual, he also translated

ancient Greek drama Ancient Greek theatre was a theatrical culture that flourished in ancient Greece from 700 BC. The city-state of Athens, which became a significant cultural, political, and religious place during this period, was its centre, where the theatre was ...

, mainly

Aristophanes Aristophanes (; grc, Ἀριστοφάνης, ; c. 446 – c. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme Kydathenaion ( la, Cydathenaeum), was a comic playwright or comedy-writer of ancient Athens and a poet of Old Attic Comedy. Eleven of his for ...

' comedies (''Frogs'', ''Clouds'', ''Chickens'', ''Lysistrata''), as well as foreign literature. Together with Nanos Valaoritis and others he participated in the editorial team of the pioneering literary magazine ''Pali'' (1964–1967). One theme that is ubiquitous in Taktsis's later texts is homosexuality, which he sometimes accepts and sometimes sees as a permanent curse.

Biography

Costas Taktsís' father, Grigórios, and his mother Eli were from Eastern Rumelia, a region of

Thrace Thrace (; el, Θράκη, Thráki; bg, Тракия, Trakiya; tr, Trakya) or Thrake is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split among Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to ...

now part of Bulgaria. At the age of seven, after the separation from his parents, young Costas was sent to Athens to live with his grandmother. At the end of high school, he enrolled at the Athens Law School, but would never finish his studies. In 1947, he was called up for military service, and in 1951 he was hired as assistant to the American director of the Louros dam project. From the beginning of 1954 to 1964, he travelled and lived in Australia where he was befriended by the Australian modernist painter Carl Plate, various Western European countries, Africa and the United States, practicing various trades, from seafarer to

sous-chef A sous-chef is a chef A chef is a trained professional cook and tradesman who is proficient in all aspects of food preparation, often focusing on a particular cuisine. The word "chef" is derived from the term ''chef de cuisine'' (), the ...

in a restaurant. When he returned to Greece, he tried to survive as a tour guide, translator and finally as a professional writer. During the period of the Junta (1967-1974), he had several encounters with the police. A homosexual, he advocated for gay rights and denounced their repression and marginalization. On August 27, 1988, he was discovered by his sister, strangled at his home in Kolono. This crime has never been solved.

Work

Taktsís appeared in Greek literature in the early 1950s with his collections of poems: ''Δέκα ποιήματα (Ten Poems)", ''Μικρά ποιήματα'' (Little Poems) and ''Περί ώραν δωδεκάτην'' (Towards the Twelfth Hour), which he later disavowed. Two other collections followed: ''Συμφωνία του “Μπραζίλιαν” '' (The Symphony of the Brazilian) and (1954) and ''Καφενείο “Το Βυζάντιο'' (Café Byzantium) (1956). In 1962 he published his novel ''Το τρίτο στεφάνι'' (The Third Wedding Wreath), which brought him international acclaim after it was translated into French as ''Le troisième anneau'' by

and published by Gallimard in 1967 and then into English by John Chioles. With

Nanos Valaoritis Ioannis (Nanos) Valaoritis ( el, Ιωάννης (Νάνος) Βαλαωρίτης; 5 July 1921 – 12 September 2019) was a Greek writer, widely published as a poet, novelist and playwright since 1939; his correspondence with George Seferis (''Al ...

and others, he was part of the editorial team of the avant-garde literary magazine ''Pali'' (1964-1967). In 1972, he published the collection of short stories ''Τα ρέστα'' (Small Change), and in 1979 a series of autobiographical stories under the title ''Η γιαγιά μου η Αθήνα'' (My grandmother Athens).

Bibliography

* Poems (Poetry Collection) 1951 * Small Poems (Poetry Collection) 1952 * About Twelve O'clock (Poetry Collection) 1953 * Symphony of the Brazilian (Poetry Collection) 1954 * Cafe Byzantium and Other Poems (Poetry Collection) 1956 * The Third Wreath (Novel) 1962 * The Editions or the Rest (Short Story Collection) 1972 * My Grandmother Athens (Autobiographical Collection) 1979 * The Terrible Step (Unfinished Autobiography) 1989 * From a Low Point of View, 1992 * Sorry, Aren't you Mr. Taktsis? 1996 * Notebook of Constantine Grig. Taktsis, 1996 * A Greek Dragon in London, 2002

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Taktsis, Costas 1927 births 1988 deaths Greek gay writers Greek male novelists Greek male poets 20th-century Greek male writers Greek LGBT novelists Greek LGBT poets Gay novelists Gay poets People murdered in Greece Deaths by strangulation 20th-century Greek LGBT people

Biography

Work

Further reading

Bibliography

References