Drawing on his friendship with Karavis, David Solway has leavened the critical commentary and biographical background with a selection of letters and extracts from the notebooks of this enigmatic Greek poet. Includes never-before published new poems Karavis has sent to Solway.The works and days of Andreas Karavis together constitute a rare phenomenon in the cultural life of contemporary Greece. A poet who was largely unknown until the late eighties, working indefatigably but in almost total obscurity from youth to later middle age, he suddenly finds himself in the public eye as a powerful but enigmatic presence ... yet his life remains an almost impenetrable secret.

David Solway is the author of many books of poetry including the award-winning Modern Marriage, Bedrock, Chess Pieces, Saracen Island: The Poetry of Andreas Karavis and The Lover's Progress: Poems after William Hogarth, the latter illustrated by Marion Wagschal and adapted for the stage by Curtain Razors. His work has been anthologized in The Penguin Book of Canadian Verse, McClelland and Stewart's New Canadian Poetry, Border Lines: Contemporary Poetry in English from Copp Clark, and The Bedford Introduction to Literature from St. Martin's Press. Among his publications, Education Lost won the QSPELL Prize for Nonfiction and Random Walks was a finalist for Le Grand Prix du Livre de Montr?al, while his poetry collection Franklin's Passage won the prize. Solway publishes regularly in such journals as The Atlantic Monthly and Canadian Notes & Queries, and is an occasional contributor to the book pages of the National Post. His more specialized writings have appeared in the International Journal of Applied Semiotics, Policy Options: Institute on Research in Public Policy, and the Journal of Modern Greek Studies. Solway recently completed a new collection of poems entitled The Properties of Things and in the past three years has published two political books, The Big Lie: On Terror, Antisemitism and Identity and Hear, O Israel!. David Solway writes regularly for FrontPage Magazine and Pajamas Media, and is a contributing editor for The Metropolitan and Arts & Opinion.

David Solway's profile page

"It is a great poem, the kind that will make future readers take seriously Solway's claim to be our Yeats [...] Saracen Island and An Andreas Karavis Companion constitute a vast allegory of the Canadian Literary landscape [...] perhaps you will find yourself in them." -Derek Webster, The Fiddlehead, No. 210
“?"In Saracen Island [Solway] has his own special brand of fun, creating a detailed poetic biography for Karavis. The poems are, as Solway says of Karavis, "deceptively simple and profoundly resourceful." [...] Karavis, whoever he may be, is an engaging persona, . . . seldom relinquishing Solway's characteristic energy." -Diana Fitzgerald Bryden, National Post??
"In Solway's able hands, Karavis has become an Aegean pirate's vessel, carrying within it a rich booty of seas, desolate shores, compass roses and wild emeralds." -Fred A. Reed, Montreal Review of Books