Konstantinos Dimitriadis (; 20 March 1931 – 11 August 2020), better known by his

pen name A pen name or nom-de-plume is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen name may be used to make the author's na ...

Dinos Christianopoulos (Ντίνος Χριστιανόπουλος), was a Greek contemporary and post-war poet, novelist, folklorist, and scholar. He was also a music scholar who wrote about

rebetiko Rebetiko (, ), plural rebetika ( ), occasionally transliterated as rembetiko or rebetico, is a term used to designate previously disparate kinds of urban Greek music which in the 1930s went through a process of musical syncretism and develope ...

. As Christianopoulos, he is widely known for writing the couplet: "They tried to bury us. They didn't know we were seeds."

Biography

Dimitriadis was born in

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; ), also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, Salonika, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece (with slightly over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area) and the capital cit ...

on 20 March 1931, the son of a refugee from

East Thrace East Thrace or Eastern Thrace, also known as Turkish Thrace or European Turkey, is the part of Turkey that is geographically in Southeast Europe. Turkish Thrace accounts for 3.03% of Turkey's land area and 15% of its population. The largest c ...

. He received a degree in Classical Studies from the

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki ( AUTh; ), often called the University of Thessaloniki, is the second oldest tertiary education institution in Greece. Named after the philosopher Aristotle, who was born in Stageira, about east of Thessa ...

in 1955. He worked as a librarian from 1958 to 1965. His first poem ''Age of Lean Cows'' was published in 1947. He was influenced by Constantine P. Cavafy and

T.S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist and playwright.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biography''. New York: Oxford University ...

. Dimitriadis was gay, but he never claimed his sexuality. He was awarded the 2011 National Grand Prix for Literature, but refused to pick it up. Aristotle University of Thessaloniki awarded him an honorary doctorate in June 2011. He died on 11 August 2020 at the age of 89.Εφυγε από τη ζωή ο Ντίνος Χριστιανόπουλος
His work was donated to the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

Bibliography

* ''Season of the Lean Cows'', 1950 * ''Indefensible Yearning'', 1960 * ''Fresh Water Stories'', 1980 * ''The Body and the Wormwood'' * ''The downward turn: Fourteen short stories'', 1994

References

Modern Greek poets Greek short story writers 20th-century Greek poets Greek folklorists * Greek LGBTQ poets Greek gay writers 20th-century Greek LGBTQ people 21st-century Greek LGBTQ people People from Thessaloniki 1931 births 2020 deaths 21st-century Greek novelists 20th-century Greek writers 21st-century Greek male writers 21st-century Greek poets {{Greece-poet-stub