Manos Eleftheriou, one of Greece’s most revered and significant poets and song lyricists; a Greek man of many talents, sadly passed away early on Sunday morning at 80 years of age.

An iconic figure among Greek intellectuals, Eleftheriou created an immense body of work, comprised of several poetry collections, short stories, novels and lyrics for over 400 songs. Not only was he an excellent writer though, as he also worked as an illustrator, a radio producer and an editor.

Eleftheriou was born on 12 March 1938 in Ermoupolis, Syros, where he stayed for 14 years before moving to Athens. During this time, he attended the Stavrakos School of Cinema and Stage Studies. In 1960, during his time in the military, he began to write his first poems and plays, achieving publication of his first collection two years later at 24 years old. Some of the poems even later became composed by other musicians.

Soon after that he created two short-story collections and in 1964 finally made his introduction into song writing, collaborating with well-known composers Christos Leontis and Mikis Theodorakis. But that was just the beginning, as soon after he worked with almost every famous Greek composer, putting words to music by Dimos Moutsis, Yannis Markopoulos, Loukianos Kilaidonis, Manos Hadjidakis, Yorgos Zabetas, Yannis Spanos and many others. His songs were sung by Dimitris Mitropanos, Yorgos Dalaras, Vicky Moscholiou, Haris Alexiou and countless other singers.

As he grew as an artist, Eleftheriou widened his horizons and tried new things; he created illustrations for children’s books, edited books about his birthplace, Syros and branched out into novels in the 90s, one of which being The Time of the Chrysanthemums. This won him the State Literature Award in 2005.

In 2013 the Academy of Athens presented Eleftheriou with a lifetime achievement award, acknowledging his body of work and his contribution to Greek culture.

Following the news of his tragic death, caused by a heart arrest on Sunday, the Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos praised him as being “one of the country’s great intellectuals”.