23.05.1948–07.02.2013
Niki Marangou
Niki Marangou (1948–2013), from Limassol, wrote poetry, prose and fairy tales for children and also painted: she had seven solo exhibitions, the first in 1975. She studied sociology in West Berlin, worked as a dramaturge at the Cyprus Theatre Organisation and ran a bookshop in Nicosia. She received the Cavafy prize and the poetry prize of the Athens Academy.
Biography
She died in Fayoum, Egypt, on 7 February 2013, on a journey, in a car crash. She was 65. She was in Egypt for a seminar of artists.
Niki Marangou was born in 1948 in Limassol, Cyprus, in a Greek Cypriot milieu. From 1965 to 1970 she studied sociology in West Berlin.
It is an unusual path for a future poet and painter, and I would not build guesses on it: why she chose that subject is not known. After graduating, Marangou worked as a dramaturge at the Cyprus Theatre Organisation. Later she turned to bookselling: she ran a bookshop in Nicosia called Kochlias (“The Snail”). Her main work was literary. She wrote prose, poetry and fairy tales for children. Some of her books have been translated into German and Spanish, and possibly into English. In German there is the book “Von Famagusta nach Wien. Die Geschichte eines Arztes aus Zypern” (Klagenfurt, Kitab, 2008, translated by Martin Scharnhorst). She was a member of the Hellenic Authors Society and the Cyprus Writers Association.
The prizes came one after another. In 1998 she was awarded the Cavafy prize for poetry in Alexandria. In 2006 the Athens Academy honoured her book “Divan” with its poetry prize. In 2007 the literary magazine Diavaso named her novel “The Demon of Lust” among the ten best Greek short story books of the year. In 2008 she received the Cavafy prize for poetry again.
Marangou also painted. Her first solo exhibition took place in 1975, and she had seven in all. Which subjects and techniques prevailed in her painting is hard to say, and I will not describe works from memory.
Profile notes