Tilemachos Alaveras

Telemachos Alaveras (September 30, 1926 - June 30, 2007) was born in 1926 in Plovdiv, Eastern Rumelia (present-day Bulgaria). The following year, his family moved to Thessaloniki, a city he would never leave. He made his literary debut in 1947 with short stories in literary magazines. In 1952, his first book, the short story collection "The Beasts of the Other Forest," was published and did not go unnoticed by critics. Alexandros Argyriou wrote, among other things: "The young prose writer knows how to handle the successive waves of his memories, he knows what best to retain from what his memory brings him." In 1955, the literary magazine "New Course" was founded, which, alongside his writing work, became a lifelong project, with him serving as editor until his death. For "New Course," he was honored by the Academy of Athens with the Petros Haris Award in 2006, an event celebrated by the intellectual community of Northern Greece (including Prodromos Markoglou, Markos Meskos, Makis Trikoukis, among others). Following the establishment of "New Course," he published several books: "The Clock," a novel, 1957; "Half of the Moon," short stories, 1960; "The Current Writing Problem," an essay, 1961; "Steamroller," a novel, 1963; "Short Story Writers of Thessaloniki," a study, 1970; "The Others," a play, 1971, and more. Among Telemachos Alaveras's works, two were awarded state prizes—the short story collection "On Occasion," 1976, and the travel chronicle "In a Straight Line (Journey to Poland)," 1990—and one received the Ouranis Award from the Academy of Athens—the short stories "Corners and Aspects," 1985. In June 2007, he was honored with the Grand State Literature Prize for his entire body of work. He served on numerous councils and committees concerning intellectual and artistic matters and gave lectures in Athens, Thessaloniki, and throughout Greece. In 1962, he was a founding member of the Thessaloniki Society of Writers, where he held the position of general secretary until 1980, when he was elected president, a position he maintained until the end. Married to poet Roula Alavera, they had two children together. His prose has been translated into Italian, German, Dutch, Bulgarian, Swedish, Serbian, and Polish. (photo: Kostas Mitropoulos, 2001)