Melpo Axioti’s literary requiem

Melpo Axioti (1905-1973) is the greatest Greek female writer of the 20th century. Her first novel “Difficult Nights” (1938) introduced a modernistic style to Greek literature. She was a political exile both in Western and in Eastern Europe. The tool of her writing lies in self-identification, in inner monologue and a flowing language. Axioti has the power to use her childhood memories from her island, Mykonos, in a constructive leap from the personal to the collective. During her later years her books “My house” (1965) and “Kadmo” (1972) bring to the surface a dying world and seal her literary path with a heartbreaking fictional autobiography.