Andreas Empeirikos (1901-1975)

Andreas Empeirikos (Greek: Ανδρέας Εμπειρίκος; also transliterated Embirikos or Emperikos) was born on September 2nd 1901 in Brăila (Romania) and died on August 3rd 1975 in Kifisia / Athens.

He is widely regarded as the leading Greek surrealist poet of the 20th century; he was also a novelist, essayist, photographer and one of the first practitioners/introductioners of psychoanalysis in Greece.

Empeirikos lived in Paris in the late 1920s–early 1930s, where he came into contact with André Breton and other Surrealists and began psychoanalytic training; his first public Surrealist statement in Greece and his early surrealist poetry appeared in the mid-1930s.

Why he matters, and why are we commemorating him 50 years from his passing?

His early collection Υψικάμινος (usually translated Blast-Furnace or Blast-Furnace / The Furnace) is considered the first fully Surrealist text in modern Greek; his long prose/novelistic project Ο Μέγας Ανατολικός (The Great Eastern) is his life’s work and one of the most ambitious — and controversial — books in modern Greek letters.