? ???????? ??? ?????????? / [The Symphony of the Brazilian]

Costas Taktsis
Athens: D. Kavalliotis, 1954.
First Edition. Inscribed by Author

27cm x 20.5cm. 23 pages. Lettered wrappers. Text is in Greek.

The fourth published collection of poems by Greek writer Costas Taktsis (1927-1988), published shortly before he traveled to Australia where he lived on and off between 1954 and 1964, becoming close friends with modernist painter Carl Plate, and where he wrote part of his acclaimed novel, The Third Wedding. Openly gay, Taktsis’ writing provides some of the few homosexual perspectives from the Pre-Junta years in Greece. Seemingly contradictorily, he opposed the Gay Liberation Movement of Greece (AKOE), largely on the basis of the inclusion of trans rights, all the while secretly prostituting himself as a transvestite woman. He was found strangled in his flat in August 1988 and the case has never been solved. This copy inscribed by Taktsis to the British novelist Francis Henry King, King came out as gay in the 1970s.

Stain to wrappers spine tail and some soiling to front panel. Minor bump to tail fore-edge corner. Very Good Condition.

SOLD