Gail Holst-Warhaft

Gail Holst with Mikis Theodorakis

Gail Holst-Warhaft was born in Melbourne, Australia. She completed a B.A. in English Literature and History of Art before leaving for Greece, where she worked as a musician and journalist during the 1970s. She played harpsichord in the orchestras of Mikis Theodorakis, Dionysis Savvopoulos and Mariza Koch. Her first book, Road to Rembetika: Music of Greek Sub-culture was published in 1975. Holst-Warhaft wrote the script for a prize-winning documentary film based on her book that was narrated by Anthony Quinn (Rembetika: The Blues of Greece ).The book has been translated into Greek, Turkish and German, and will soon appear in French. Her second book, Theodorakis: Myth and Politics in Modern Greek Music, was published by Hakkert in 1980.

In 1990, Holst-Warhaft received a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Cornell University. Her dissertation was the basis of the book Dangerous Voices: Women's Laments and Greek Literature, published by Routledge in 1992. Holst-Warhaft's most recent book is The Cue for Passion: Grief and its Political Uses, published by Harvard University Press (2000). Holst-Warhaft has published translations of many works poetry and prose from modern and ancient Greek including her prize-winning translation of the collected poems of Nikos Kavadias, Achilles' Fiancee by Alki Zei, Mauthausen by Iakovos Kambanellis, and The Suppliants by Aeschylus. She has received numerous awards and published articles in many journals, newspapers and magazines. She is an adjunct Associate Professor in the departments of Classics and Comparative Literature at Cornell University and works as a free-lance writer, poet and translator.