Dimitris Tsaloumas

Tsaloumas was born in Greece on the island of Leros, one of the Dodecanese islands, which were then under Italian rule (from 1912 to 1947). Consequently, his formal education was in Italian. His later schooling was on Rhodes, where he also studied the violin. He came of age during the Italian and German occupation of Greece, and took part in the resistance, acting as a courier. In Greece, before migrating to Australia, he published two collections of poetry, one of which was printed with the help of the English writer Lawrence Durrell, who met Tsaloumas on Rhodes and was impressed with his work. He left for Australia in 1952 because of political persecution and earned a living by teaching. He started writing again (in Greek) and had several volumes published. He became known to English readers when a selection of his Greek poems was published in the bilingual edition of The Observatory in 1983. The first poems he wrote entirely in English were published in 1988 in Falcon Drinking. After that he published several more volumes of English-language poetry. He often returned to Greece, spending much of his time on Leros. Among the prizes he has received for his writing are the National Book Council Award (1983), the Patrick White Award (1994) and an Emeritus Award from the Literature Board of the Australia Council for outstanding and lifelong contribution to Australian literature (2002). Four of Tsaloumas' poems, "I Took the Path to the Mountain", "The Foreigner", "The Pomegranate", and "Letters Bearing Bad Tidings", were set to music by the Greek-Australian songwriter Costas Tsicaderis. The latter two were published in 1985 on Live at The Boite. A studio version of "The Pomegranate" was included in the anthology of Greek Australian songs and music In a Strange Land. "I Took the Path to the Mountain" and "The Foreigner" is on the album by Irine Vela and Costas Tsicaderis, Greek 3CR.