The Anglo-Hellenic League
Dedicated to promoting Anglo-Greek understanding and friendship, through charitable and cultural work.
News
DEATH OF HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE PHILIP, DUKE OF EDINBURGH
On behalf of the Council and members of the League, our chair has today written today to Her Majesty The Queen and to our Chief Patron, Prince Michael of Kent, a cousin of the late Duke, to express our profound sympathy and condolence for the death of His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. His family and personal history embodied the ties between Britain and Greece, between the Greek and British peoples, which we, in this organisation, strive to foster and strengthen. His Royal Highness lived a life of exemplary public service. He will be much missed and his memory lovingly preserved.
SEVEN MAGNIFICENT BOOKS TO CELEBRATE THE GREEK BICENTENARY
JUDGES ANNOUNCE THE SHORT LIST FOR
THE ANGLO-HELLENIC LEAGUE RUNCIMAN AWARD 2021
‘AMBITION, INVENTIVENESS AND REAL ORIGINALITY’
At its meeting on 7 April, the judging panel for the Anglo-Hellenic League Runciman Award 2021 agreed its short list for the competition.
Out of the 21 wonderful books selected by the judges in January to form their long list, the panel has now chosen seven books, published in 2019 or 2020, to go forward as the short list for the final round of judging.
Peter Frankopan, Chair of judges, said: ‘This was a year of extraordinary depth and variety, covering Greek history, literature and culture from deep antiquity right up to the present day. Inevitably, choosing a short-list from such a strong selection was not easy. However, I am delighted we have chosen a set of books that show ambition, inventiveness and real originality – ranging from re-telling the siege of Troy to the interpretation of the Moon, from Venus and Aphrodite to Greece during the 19th and 20th centuries, from the Byzantine Emperor Theodore Laskaris to modern Greek poetry. We will need plenty of coffee (and perhaps something stronger) to select a winner from these masterpieces – each of which deserves to find many eager readers of all ages and each of which will appeal to specialists and the general reader alike.’
The Runciman Award has been run by The Anglo-Hellenic League since 1986, to reward the best book published recently about Greece or on a Greek subject in English. The competition was not run in 2020. In 2021, the League has found new sponsors for the Award and will be relaunching the book prize at an Award Ceremony when Covid restrictions are lifted in London. The Award Ceremony will form part of the UK’s celebrations of the Bicentenary of the Greek War of Independence, which is being celebrated globally this year.
The seven short-listed titles are set out below, in alphabetical order (by author):
|
Title |
Author |
Press |
Period |
Genre |
RRP |
|
The Byzantine Hellene: The Life of Emperor Theodore Laskaris and Byzantium in the Thirteenth Century |
Dimiter Angelov |
Cambridge University Press (2019) |
Byzantium |
Biography |
£34.99 |
|
Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation |
Roderick Beaton |
Penguin Random House (2019) |
Modern |
History |
£30 |
|
A Greek Ballad: Selected Poems |
Michalis Ganas, translated by David Connolly & Joshua Barley |
Yale University Press (2020) |
Modern |
Translation (poetry) |
£30 |
|
Troy |
Stephen Fry |
Penguin Michael Joseph (2020) |
Antiquity |
Fiction |
£20 |
|
Venus and Aphrodite |
Bettany Hughes |
Weidenfeld & Nicolson (Orion) (2019) |
Antiquity |
Myth / religion / reception |
£12.99 |
|
The Moon in the Greek and Roman Imagination: Myth, Literature, Science & Philosophy |
Karen ni Mheallaigh |
Cambridge University Press (2020) |
Antiquity |
Myth / literature / science / philosophy |
£75 |
|
Adoption, Memory and Cold War Greece: Kid Pro Quo? |
Gonda Van Steen |
University of Michigan Press (2019) |
Modern |
History |
£69.95 |
The judges for the Anglo-Hellenic League Runciman Award 2021 are:
Prof. Peter Frankopan (chair)
Dr Dionysis Kapsalis
Prof. Naoíse Mac Sweeney
Prof. Judith Mossman
Dr Sofka Zinovieff
Details of the new sponsors and of the Award ceremony will be announced shortly.
John Kittmer (Award Administrator)
for the Council of
The Anglo-Hellenic League
9 April 2021
Bicentenary of the Start of the Greek War of Independence
Letter to the President of the Hellenic Republic
By way of letter dated 25 March 2021, our Chair has written to the President of the Hellenic Republic, Her Excellency Mrs Katerina Sakellaropoulou, on behalf of the members and Council of the League, to express our congratulations on the start of the bicentenary celebrations. A copy of the letter (in Greek) is set out below.
Outline Cultural Programme for 2021
We set out here our outline cultural programme for 2021. Information about how to sign up for events is generally released four weeks before the event. Watch this site for more information. Because of the pandemic, all events advertised to take place in person are liable to change at short notice.
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