Literary Encounters and Exchanges: A Thirty Year Review

See if you can identify some of the writers
(some of these images have been posted before)
Various items relate to seven Nobel Prize Winners (and to others who were shortlisted), two to Poet Laureates, one to a winner of the Lenin Peace Prize, one to a winner of the Nordic Council's Literature Prize and one to a winner of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature.
I haven't counted these writers' other awards, honours and prizes, such as the Booker Prize.

Which is which?

 Focus on British Literature, Gothenburg Book Fair

Scotland in Sweden

 Alan Sillitoe in Thessaloniki

Ruth Fainlight




Sample Thessaloniki programme

George Savidis

P D James, Thessaloniki

 Ian Rankin, Stockholm

  
My son's book

Yannis Ritsos with Maria Strani-Potts, Thessaloniki, 1984

Mikis Theodorakis, Journals of Resistance

Dimitris Doukaris

Barrie Humphries (rt); Maria Strani-Potts (left), Sydney, Australia

Dr Dannie Abse (rt), Stockholm

Dannie Abse, Jamie McKendrick, Sophie Hannah, Katherine Pierpoint

Poetry Reading, Mediterranean Museum, Stockholm

Poetry reading and blues at Izzy Young's Folklore Centre, Stockholm

 N. Vrettakos (left), D.Doukaris shaking hands with Jim, Athens

President Vaclav Havel (rt)

 Prague Poetry Reading, October 24, 1989

Bohumil Hrabal (rt), in Prague

Jiri Menzel

Jan Vodnansky

Zdenek Hron (above)

Vladimir Merta

Daniela Mrazkova and Vladimir Remes

Ewald Osers

Ian Milner

Peter Calvocoressi

Peter Calvocoressi, C.M. Woodhouse,  Greek historians, friends and family, Northern Greece

Richard Clogg

Lord Michael Pratt

Themistocles Marinos (left). War hero (Distinguished Service) and author

Yannis Ritsos, rt, Thessaloniki

  Demetrius Toteras, Ioannina, 1968

Yusef Komunyakaa (left), Komninos (rt), Judges,
 Poetry Olympics, Sydney Opera House

Tony Harrison, seated, Delphi

Adrian Mitchell

David Malouf, Sydney Book Launch

Dr Miroslav Holub

Fotini Epanomitis

John Fowles

Yannis Ritsos

Seamus Heaney

Alan's reading copy, Mountains and Caverns

Al

 With Margarita Mellberg and Kjell Espmark, Stockholm

Baltic Writers' Centre, Visby Gotland
Anne Sward, Risto Oikarinen,, Ingrid Storholmen and friends

Lena Pasternak

Anne Sward

Visby, Baltic Writers' Centre:
 Anne Sward, Maria Strani-Potts, Risto Oikarinen, Ingrid Storholmen and Gunstein Bakke

Lijana Dejak, Visby

 Jan Henrik Swahn and Margarita Mellberg, Monodendri, Epirus

Ingrid Storholmen and Jan Henrik Swahn at Miramura, Gotland

Ionian Inspires, with Louis de Bernieres and Dr Lee Durrell, Groucho Club, London

Louisa Adjoa Parker

Ingmar Bergman and Harriet Anderrson, Faro

Carol Ann Duffy

 Martin Hilsky and Michael Foot,

 Lecture on Byron, Charles University, Prague

Above, Michael Foot, Prague

Willie Russell (centre) in Thessaloniki
Maria Strani-Potts (left), Professor Jina Politi (right)

Ekaterini Douka-Kabitoglou

Nikos Kokantzis (far right), Sir John and Lady Burgh (left), Thessaloniki

Dimitis Koulourianos, Minister of Economic Affairs, 1982-1983

Eva Ström

Ioana's Romanian translations of some of my poems

 Wole Soyinka in Perth

Gerard Manley Hopkins, Pied Beauty, translated Zdenek Hron, 

from my lecture (Prague, 8 June, 1989), to mark the Centenary of the Death of G.M. Hopkins

 George Seferis

Odysseas Elytis

From Literary Links, Roslyn Russell, Allen and Unwin

Linda Christmas

 
Arcadia Books



Michael Holroyd and Margaret Drabble,
My 'Gothenburg Swedish Farewell, 2004

Johanna Ekstrom

Six Poems, Translations into Swedish, Lyrikvannen, No 4, 2004, by Boel Schenlaer:

Dinner with Jamie Oliver, Stockholm

Ruth Fainlight

Ruth Padel

Samuel Charters (The Country Blues, below)

Paul Oliver

Alexandros Myriallis, Greek poet from Ethiopia. 
From article on Arthur Rimbaud in Harrar.

The big one!

Julian Barnes (rt), Adelaide

Someone I never met, but whom I feel I know, a little. 

Gerald and Lawrence Durrell, a posthumous meeting

Penelope, Lawrence Durrell's daughter, with Maria
 Strani-Potts

Sydney, 16 March 1984

Niki Marangou, Cypriot poet and artist

Pavel Srut

Jaroslav Koran

Ivo Smoldas

Alois Bejblik

Michael Zantovsky

 

Sue Townsend, Adrian Mole in Czech, translated by Helena Cisarova

Poem tr. Sakis Serefas, Endefktirio, March 2004 

SEE ALSO, The Ethiopian Anthology

The latest anthology project:

My latest book, update, September 2019:

Maria's short stories: