Death of Kiki Dimoula, one of the most important contemporary poets in Greece

Kiki Dimoula, one of the most important contemporary Greek poets, winner of the European Prize for Literature, died Saturday evening in Athens at the age of 89.

Born in Athens in 1931, Kiki Dimoula published her first collection at the age of 21 before imposing herself on the poetic scene of her country especially after the 1980s with her particular look on daily life, women, loneliness, vanity, time. His most famous collections, Le peu du monde (1971) and Je te salue Jamais (1988) have been translated into several foreign languages. She was a member of the Greek Academy.

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Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis expressed "his sadness" in a message posted on Twitter: "Greece is losing one of the most important poetic voices and all of us a piece of its sensitivity," he wrote. The European Prize for Literature was awarded to him in 2009.

The death of Kiki Dimoula comes a month after that of Katerina Anghelaki-Rook, another important voice in post-World War II Greek poetry. Poetry retains a considerable place in Greece. The great Greek poets Georges Seféris and Odysséas Elytis were laureates of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1963 and 1979.