American novelist, essayist and translator Edmund Keeley, born in Damascus, Syria, to American parents in 1928 has died at the age of 94.
Kili, who contributed greatly to the international promotion of modern Greek culture and modern Greek literature, was a graduate of Princeton and Oxford universities. A graduate of Princeton and Oxford Universities, he taught English, Creative Writing and Modern Greek Literature at Princeton for forty years. For a few years he served as director of the Creative Writing Program and the Greek Studies Program. He was a founding member of the Society for Modern Greek Studies and twice served as its president. From 1991-93 he served as president of the American Center for Writers’ Rennes, and on nine occasions represented the Center at international Renaissance conferences: in Lugano, Paris, Vienna, Barcelona, ​​Rio de Janeiro, Santiago de Compostela, Perth, Guadalajara and Edinburgh. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of REN.
The Hudson Review mourns the passing of Edmund Keeley, a great poet, translator, novelist and essayist.
In his memory, we are sharing the last three poems he published with us (“Pelion,” “Daylight” and “The Day Comes”), which he intended as a trilogy.https: //t.co/n6Fquui15H pic.twitter.com/sPDKiLNrH3
– The Hudson Review (@TheHudsonReview) February 23, 2022
He wrote seven novels, numerous essays and translated numerous works of poetry, including Seferis, Ritsos, Cavafy, Elytis and Sikelianos. For forty years he created and directed the Department of Greek Literature at Princeton University, where he also taught new Greek literature. An important part of his essay work deals with the leading Greek poets.
He has been honored many times for his writing and translation work. For his first novel, The Libation, Kili was honored with the Rome Academy Prize of the American Academy of Letters and Arts. In 1992 he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Letters and Sciences. For translations of poetry he was honored with the Columbia Translation Center / PEN Award (1975), the Harold Morton Landon Award of the Academy of American Poets (1980) and the First European Prize for Poetry Translation awarded by the European Economic Community (1987).
Four of his novels are published in Greek: “The diaries of a deserted country”, “The last summer of innocence”, “The silent cry of memory” and “The study”, all by Exantas. Also published by the same publisher, his book “Rebuilding paradise – the Greek journey (1937-1947)”.
Condolence message from the Minister of Culture and Sports Lina Mendoni for the loss of Edmund Kili
The multifaceted, multidimensional work of Edmund Kili, as a translator, poet, novelist, teacher, was connected with deep ties with Greece, with a relationship of worship for the place, the language, the lyrics of the Greek poets. He introduced the poetry of Seferis, Cavafy, Ritsos and Sikelianos to the English-speaking public, conveying, beyond the words, the spirit, the sense of Greek poetry, through the personal relations he developed, with a special long friendship with him. George Seferis. For Kili, Greece was not just a country he met and lived in. It was his second home. We say goodbye to him as a Greek, with the unlimited respect we owe to his important work and to his great contribution to the transmission of Greek culture. I express my heartfelt condolences to his family and many of his friends.
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