Gail Holst-Warhaft

Gail Holst-Warhaft on the Greek island of Naxos

Gail Holst-Warhaft was born in Australia but lived in Greece before settling in Ithaca, NY. While researching her books on Greek music she played in the orchestras of Mikis Theodorakis and Dionysis Savvopoulos. A poet, translator, musician and professor of Comparative Literature at Cornell University, Holst-Warhaft’s books include The Fall of Athens (poems and prose memoir); Penelope’s Confession (poems); The Collected Poems of Nikos Kavadias (translations); The House with the Scorpions: Selected Poems and Song Lyrics of Mikis Theodorakis (translations); The Cue for Passion: Grief and its Political Uses; Dangerous Voices: Women's Laments and Greek Literature; Theodorakis: Myth and Politics in Modern Greek Music; Road to Rembetika. Her poems and translations from Greek, French, and Anglo-Saxon have been published in many journals and anthologies including Literary Imagination, Per Contra, Translation, Southerly, Antipodes and Stand. She was poet laureate of Tompkins County for 2011 and 2012. Holst-Warhaft’s second collection of poems, Lucky Country, was published by Fomite in 2018. A children’s book about rembetika is forthcoming.

Texts & References on this site

• Nisiotika: Music, dances, and bitter-sweet songs of the Aegean islands
• The Boundless Garden: Volume II: Selected Short Stories includes two translations by Gail.