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Synopsis
Costas Taktsis (Κώστας Ταχτσής), arguably the most important post-war Greek writer, referred to himself as a Sacred Monster. He called his life-long friend, Sydney artist Carl Plate, a committed internationalist and key figure in the post-war Australian modern art movement, the Colossus of Woronora. After Taktsis was banished from Australia, the friendship of these inveterate travellers - the writer and the artist - was kept alive through decades of correspondence.
Dr Cassi Plate will talk about the poet and writer’s experience of Australia during the post-war wave of immigration. For Taktsis, Australia was a place of innocence, a new stage on which to reinvent himself, and the form of the Greek novel. On the contrary, Carl Plate (1909-1977) saw Australia as a prison from which he sought to escape, but a prison that enabled him to keep painting.
Claimed as the first modern Greek novel, The Third Wedding, written largely in Australia, was dedicated to Carl and Jocelyn Plate.
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