The Writers Capital International Foundation’s prestigious Global Icon of Literature Awards 2022 will be presented to the Greek poet, writer and cultural activist Antonis Samiotakis. In a press release, the jury said that the award is considering his overall contributions in the field of literature, arts and culture.
Antonis Samiotakis, a great litterateur, is a cosmopolitan monk from Greece. His mental and psychical placement towards life is, with holiness to human beings, dignity, human virtues and ideas. He has been brought up in a family coming as a refugee from Izmir, when it was Hellenic and a grandfather who had a textile factory.
After coming to Greece, they had a new factory again but after the German attack 1941-42 they lost it again, leaving his father a trainman while Antonis was brought up in Oinoi, near Athens, and then in the suburbs of Piraeus. Being in fact poor, he was “fermented” with poverty and human needs, in order to be educated and develop to a free person.
He found himself as a newspaper delivery boy and during the years around 1985-1990, he became a councilman at the most densely populated municipality of Athens, the city of Kokkinia. He played a major role in establishing important cultural centres, musical school and theatrical school departments, spiritual centres and many more schools of literature and Arts.
In this way, Kokkinia became the “lighthouse” for other towns which started creating such departments and educating people in all aspects, and this became a bright period of time for Municipal activities. With his inner culture and sensitive heart he started to examine his own world. He became a mentor for people who studied Poetry, a Critic, and a Director too, as he has written theatrical plays as well.
A philanthropist by nature, he deals with African organizations to alleviate people’s pain in addition to other individual activities. He is the founder of the Peiramatic Museum of Literature, which has stood with his own money for the last 10 years, with private collections of paintings and sculptures dedicated to the Poetry and the history of Kokkinia, the town he adores. As a journalist for many years, he has acquired an unmistakable criterion for things remarkable about culture and humanization. The emblem of the museum is the owl, which in Greece is the symbol of wisdom.
I am very touched and honored to be a “student” by your side. A real filanthropist and Literrateur among us. Congratulations You honor us all