(Athens) The author of the novel-indictment Z against the dictatorship of the colonels in Greece, later adapted for the cinema by Costa-Gavras, Vassilis Vassilikos, died Thursday at the age of 90 in Athens, his daughter announced, Euridice Vassilikou-Papantoniou to AFP.
“He had been unwell for several days and was hospitalized,” she said without further details.
His masterpiece Z, published in 1966 a year before the junta came to power, was adapted for the cinema by the Greek-French director Costa-Gavras three years later with Jean-Louis Trintignant, Yves Montand and music by Mikis Theodorakis.
“I’m losing a friend, a brother…” the director, who has been living in France for a long time, told AFP.
“He was an extraordinary man, of great intelligence and also of great gentleness. He has always been my advisor on everything concerning Greece. He always had a precise and honest look,” confided Costa-Gavras who went, with his wife Michèle, to the bedside of Vassilis Vassilikos.
In 1967, Vassilikos was placed on the Greek police’s priority arrest list. A year earlier, he had recounted in Z the assassination of a left-wing deputy, Grigoris Lambrakis.
“His novel that I brought to the screen excited me for the precision of the situations describing extraordinary military stupidity,” Costa-Gavras further underlined.
Greek Culture Minister Lina Mendoni expressed “sadness” for “the death of the great writer and (his) friend.”
“Cosmopolitan and active in the political and social life of the country, he wrote novels that reflected the Greek adventure of the post-World War II era,” she said in a statement.
Z was translated into 32 languages and the film, screened around the world, won two awards at the Cannes Film Festival and two Oscars in the United States.
Like all of Vassilikos’ works, Z remained banned during the seven years of military dictatorship that the writer spent in exile, mainly in Paris.
Born on November 18, 1933 in Kavala, Vassilikos grew up in Thessaloniki, the second largest Greek city in northern Greece.
A student at a French high school, he is passionate about Gide, Sartre and Camus. After studying law, he studied directing for television in the United States.
Back in Athens, he worked as a journalist and screenwriter. After his Parisian exile, he returned to Athens in 1974 and became a columnist for a major newspaper. His “zoological sheets” where he compares ancient torturers to various prehistoric animals are particularly popular.
Chronicler of contemporary Greece and tireless socialist activist, he was elected in 2019 at the age of 85 as a member of the Greek parliament under the label of Syriza, the main opposition party.
