Later Works
His other two collections are Fog which was published in 1947 and Traverso which was published after his death 1975. Another short story, Of War, published after his death in 1987, recounts the story of his rescue by a local during a storm. The war had a deep effect on him and these later collections are politically motivated, in support of the somewhat more liberal communists. One of these later poems is about the death of Argentinian revolutionary Ernesto (Che) Guevara and was written as an answer to the accusations by some active communists who thought that his poems romanticized too much the otherwise harsh and dangerous life of sailors, who were potential symbols of class struggle. Another is about the execution of Andalusian poet and writer Federico García Lorca by the Franco dictatorship, which, in the poem, is associated with the destruction of the Greek village of Distomo and other brutal acts done by the Nazi forces occupying Greece during the Second World War.
His only novel The Shift was published in 1954 and recounts the stories told by the sailors on their night shift at the ship's bridge. Images from exotic places, prostitutes, captains gone mad and memories of the War blend in to form a dreamy world full of lucid forms, part fictitious, part true.
Although he is very popular in Greece, with his best poems taught throughout the country, his fame is not as widespread as the great Greek poet Odysseas Elytis.He is considered by many to be the embodiment of the Greek "soul" for his romantic affiliation with the sea and its journeys and for his genuinely humane outlook.
A selection of his poetry, with some of his shorter prose, translated into English by Simon Darragh, is available under the title Wireless Operator from the London Publisher Enitharmon.
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