GRIGORIS XENOPOULOS 2001 – 50 years since his death

2001 marked the 150th anniversary of the birth of Alexandros Papadiamantis, and the 50th anniversary of the death of Grigoris Xenopoulos and Angelos Sikelianos. To honour the authors, the Ministry of Culture and EKEBI decided to host a series of events and activities in collaboration with the anniversary events organising committee set up for that purpose. The committee chairman was Professor Nasos Vagenas, University of Athens, and its members were Stavros Zoumboulakis, manager of Nea Estia journal, Georgia Farinou-Malamatari, Prof. of Modern Greek Literature, University of Thessaloniki, Eliza-Anna Delveroudi, Asst. Prof. of History of Theatre and Film, Theatre & Music Studies Section, Dept. of Philology, University of Crete, Vicky Patsiou, Asst. Prof. of Modern Greek Philology and Children’s Literature, University of Athens, Konstantinos Koroulis, Director of the Letters Directorate of the Ministry of Culture, and Christos Lazos, Director of the National Book Centre. The secretariat was Despina Moraiti, from the Ministry of Culture's Literature Directorate, and Angeliki Papanikolaou, National Book Centre special consultant.

EVENTS
A conference on Grigoris Xenopoulos – 50 years since the death of an immortal
The conference was organised in cooperation with the Hellenic Literary and Historical Archive on 28-29 November 2001 at the Stoa tou vivliou book arcade with 18 Greek speakers who were academics, critics and scholars of Xenopoulos. There was also an exhibition of first editions of his work, photographs and manuscripts by the author prepared in collaboration with Vlassis Press. The conference's proceedings were published by the Hellenic Literary and Historical Archive.

PUBLICATIONS
To mark the 150th anniversary of the death of Xenopoulos, the following books were published with the support of EKEBI and the Ministry of Culture:
Xenopoulos’ Critiques, edited by Georgia Farinou-Malamatari, Vlassis Press.

Nikolaos Sigalos, reprint of the work of Xenopoulos by the Hellenic Literary and Historical Archive.  The Upbringing of Children, re-release of the magazine in electronic format in collaboration with the Hellenic Literary and Historical Archive to make it available to libraries, scholars, etc. on CD-ROM.
A new digital education package was created for children aged 8 to 11 in collaboration with the Hellenic Literary and Historical Archive to introduce them to the magazine The Upbringing of Children.
 
‘I Don’t Like the Clouds and the Dark’ illustrated volume 
As part of the celebrations, EKEBI published a 48-page tribute to Grigoris Xenopoulos. The book was edited by Vicky Patsiou and the layout designed by Vasso Avramopoulou. The illustrated book included a detailed timeline of the author's life, a full list of his works, a selected bibliography and an anthology of his literary works.
The literary journal Nea Estia was also subsidised to publish a tribute issue to Grigoris Xenopoulos.

Mobile Exhibition
EKEBI created a mobile exhibition on the life and work of this leading author. The exhibition consists of 14 panels with a wealth of photographic material, information on his life and works, the covers of books and manuscripts from Xenopoulos. It is available from EKEBI for use at events organised in the author’s honour in Greece and abroad.