Biography

Dimitris Tsaloumas was born in Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 on the island of Leros

Leros

Leros is a Greek island and municipality in the Dodecanese in the southern Aegean Sea. It lies 317 km from Athens's port of Piraeus, from which it can be reached by an 11-hour ferry ride . Leros is part of the Kalymnos peripheral unit...

, one of the Dodecanese

Dodecanese

The Dodecanese are a group of 12 larger plus 150 smaller Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, of which 26 are inhabited. Τhis island group generally defines the eastern limit of the Sea of Crete. They belong to the Southern Sporades island group...

 islands, which were then under Italian rule (from 1912 to 1947). Consequently his formal education was in Italian. His later schooling was on Rhodes

Rhodes

Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...

 where he also studied the violin. He came of age during the Italian

Greco-Italian War

The Greco-Italian War was a conflict between Italy and Greece which lasted from 28 October 1940 to 23 April 1941. It marked the beginning of the Balkans Campaign of World War II...

 and German occupation

Occupation of Greece by Nazi Germany

The Axis occupation of Greece during World War II began in April 1941 after the German and Italian invasion of Greece. The occupation lasted until the German withdrawal from the mainland in October 1944...

 of Greece, and took part in the resistance

Greek Resistance

The Greek Resistance is the blanket term for a number of armed and unarmed groups from across the political spectrum that resisted the Axis Occupation of Greece in the period 1941–1944, during World War II.-Origins:...

, acting as a courier. In Greece, before migrating to Australia, he published two collections of poetry, one of which was printed with the help of the English writer Lawrence Durrell

Lawrence Durrell

Lawrence George Durrell was an expatriate British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer, though he resisted affiliation with Britain and preferred to be considered cosmopolitan...

, who met Tsaloumas on Rhodes and was impressed with his work.

He left for Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 in 1952 because of political persecution, where he earned a living by teaching. He started writing again (in Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

) and had several volumes published. He became known to English readers when a selection of his Greek poems was published in the bilingual edition The Observatory in 1983.

Then in 1988 his first English poems were published in Falcon Drinking. Since then he has published several more volumes of English poetry, gaining a considerable reputation both in Greece and Australia. He is now able to return to his homeland frequently and spends much of his time on Leros.

Among the many prizes he has received for his writing are the National Book Council Award (1983), Patrick White Award

Patrick White Award

The Patrick White Award is an annual literary prize established by Patrick White. White used his 1973 Nobel Prize in Literature award to establish a trust for this prize....

 (1994) and an Emeritus Award from Literature Board of the Australia Council

Australia Council

The Australia Council, informally known as the Australia Council for the Arts, is the official arts council or arts funding body of the Government of Australia.-Function:...

 for outstanding and lifelong contribution to Australian literature (2002).

Four of Tsaloumas' poems, “I Took the Path to the Mountain”, “The Foreigner”,
"The Pomegranate", and "Letters Bearing Bad Tidings", were set to music by the Greek-Australian songwriter Costas Tsicaderis

Costas Tsicaderis

Costas Tsicaderis was a Greek-Australian singer-songwriter.- Biography :Costas Tsicaderis was born in Katerini in the north of Greece in 1945, and his family migrated to Australia in 1954, when Costas was nine years old...

. The latter two were published in 1985 on Live at The Boite. A studio version of "The Pomegranate" was included on the anthology of Greek Australian songs and music In a Strange Land. “I Took the Path to the Mountain” and “The Foreigner” are on on the album by Irine Vela and Costas Tsicaderis

Costas Tsicaderis

Costas Tsicaderis was a Greek-Australian singer-songwriter.- Biography :Costas Tsicaderis was born in Katerini in the north of Greece in 1945, and his family migrated to Australia in 1954, when Costas was nine years old...

, Greek 3CR.

External links

• Two poems (bottom of page)
• Old Man’s Last Pilgrimage
• Stoneland harvest manuscript facsimile
• Review of Stoneland Harvest