Costas Montis

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Costas Montis (1914-2004), Nobel Prize nominee^{[citation needed]} and Member of the Academy of Athens, was born in Cyprus. Poet, novelist, and playwright, he is considered one of the greatest Greek writers of the 20th century,^[who?] and his works have been translated into English, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Russian, and other languages. In 1980 he was awarded the title of Poet Laureate by the World Academy of Arts and Culture. His website, http://www.costasmontis.com, contains not only information about his life and work, but also video clips with Costas Montis reciting his poems and audio clips of songs with lyrics by Costas Montis. He was a very prolific writer. Some of his works include his famous Letters to Mother, Moments, Closed Doors, a novel-chronicle of the 1955-1959 struggle of Cyprus to get rid of the British occupation on the island, Afentis Batistas, a historical-autobiographical novel, which won the First prize for novel by the National Society of Greek Writers of Cyprus, Cyprus Figurines, To Slaughter, In the Shade, Camels, The Songs of Humble Life, Cyprus in Aulis, With Fear of Man. Marios Tokas, the Greek Cypriot music composer and close friend of Costas Montis, put to music some of Costas Montis' poems about the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974.One of them, Pentadachtylos, has become the national anthem of Kyrenia, one of the towns that is under Turkish occupation in Cyprus since the 1974 Turkish invasion.