Dido Sotiriou

Dido Sotiriou (née Pappa; alternative spellings: Dido Sotiriu, Dido Sotiriyu; Greek: Διδώ Σωτηρίου; 18 February 1909 – 23 September 2004) was a Greek novelist, journalist, and playwright.

Life Sotiriou was born in Aydın, in western Anatolia and at that time part of the Ottoman Empire, as the daughter of Evangelos Pappas and Marianthi Papadopoulou, in a wealthy and polyglot bourgeois Rûm family who lived in a stately home. Her childhood, Sotiriou said, appeared to her as an "endless fairy tale". She had two older and two younger siblings. After her father, an entrepreneur, went bankrupt and her family became poor, Dido, who at that time was about eight years old, was sent to her wealthy uncle and his wife in Athens, where later she was educated. Sotiriou later described this separation from her family as "my first experience as a refugee". In 1919 the family moved to Smyrna (now İzmir), at that time occupied by Greece, but in 1922 Turkey repulsed the Greek invasion of Asia Minor (Greek-Turkish War), and Sotiriou's family had to leave Smyrna because of the inferno and slaughter that ensued in 1922, (book by Marjorie Housepian).

The family landed in the port of Piraeus, where the father worked in the docks and on ships as a clerk. In Athens, she was raised in her aunt's house in the affluent, middle-class milieu. There she completed her studies, attending the French Institute and having as teachers Kostas Paroritis and Sophia Mavroeidis-Papadakis, However, as she herself explained, she developed in that period a strong sense of social justice, especially because of the contrast between her own privileged situation and the humble way of living of her parents and siblings. She became a member of the union and so came to the leftist movement. In 1933, she joined the anti-fascist front. In 1935, she met in Geneva Vladimir Lenin’s comrade Alexandra Kollontai and in 1945, she was cofounder of the Women’s International Democratic Federation in Paris.

Traveling to Paris, she met writers as André Malraux, André Gide and Louis Aragon. In the 1950s, she herself began to write novels, "to tell the truth." The protagonists of "Farewell Anatolia" live in a little Greek Village near Ephesus, like Şirince (pictured). In 1959, she published her first novel, The Dead Await ("Οι νεκροί περιμένουν").

The Dido Sotiriou Cultural Prize, issued by the Hellenic Authors' Society, is named after her.

Dido Sotiriou is a realistic writer who uses self biographical elements participating emotionally to the adventures of her protagonists. Her novels deal with the Asia Minor Catastrophe, the civil war period and the post-war period in Greece.

Works

Prose The dead are waiting. Kedros, Athens, 1959. Elektra (Fictionalized biography of Elektra Apostolou). Athens, 1961. Bloody Earth. Kedros, Athens, 1962. (English edition: Farewell Anatolia. Kedros, Athens; 1996, ) Commandment. Kedros, Athens, 1976. (German edition: Das Gebot. Romiosini Verlag, Köln 1992, ) Through the flames. Kedros, Athens, 1978. Guests. Kedros, Athens, 1979. Shattered. Kedros, Athens, 1982. Random encounter and other stories. Kedros, Athens, 2004. Coincidence. Pyrsos, Athens, 1939.

Theater Two theatrical texts and a monologue. Kedros, Athens, 1995. Theatre. Kedros, Athens, 1995.

Non-fictional works The Asia Minor catastrophe and the strategy of imperialism in the Levant. Kedros, Athens, 1975 (essay).