Pandelis Prevelakis, a major modern Greek writer, has produced over forty works of poetry, novel, plays and essays. Known in Greece as the national writer of Crete, his native island, his works have a quality of universality about them and have been translated into all European languages. Those available in English translation include Nikos Kazantzakis and His Odyssey: A Study of the Poet and the Poem (1961); The Sun of Death (1964); and The Tale of a Town (1976). Prevelakis has, for long, been in the shadow of the reputation of his close friend and fellow Cretan, Nikos Kazantzakis. It is time that the work of Prevelakis be allowed to reveal itself and be independently appraised in the non-Greek world as is has been in the Greek. This publication, which is the result of the Second Annual Celebration of Modern Greek Letters at the University of Minnesota, dedicated to Prevelakis, is a small contribution in that direction.

In addition to the main essay, “Pandelis Prevelakis and the Value of a Heritage,” by Andonis Decavalles, this volume contains an essay by Prevelakis himself, “Rethymno as a Style of Life,” translated by Jean H. Woodhead.