Patrick Leigh Fermor - To Greece with Love

A symposium dedicated to the traveller, writer, war hero, and friend of Greece, Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915-2011).

The symposium is open to all – for attendance on Friday please register before 21 January with tsw@hum.ku.dk


Friday 26 January 14:00 - 19:00

  • Artemis Cooper (Biographer of Patrick Leigh Fermor)
    Road Block: Why Patrick Leigh Fermor’s 'Time of Gifts’ Trilogy took so long to write

  • Chris White (Contributor, Abducting a General: the Kreipe Operation and SOE in Crete) 
    In Paddy's Footsteps: PLF's secret war in Crete 1942 - 1944

  • Panayiotis (Paddy) League (Ethnomusicologist, Harvard University)
    Songs of the Cretan Resistance from the James A. Notopoulos Collection

18:00 - 19:00

Musical performance dedicated to Patrick Leigh Fermor and the members of the Cretan resistance.

With Paddy League (violin and Cretan boulgari), Dimitris Rapakousios (Cretan boulgari), Venizelos Leventogiannis (Cretan laouto)

Saturday 27 January 10:00 - 18.00

  • Myrto Kaouki (Benaki Museum)
    The Benaki Museum and the Leigh Fermor House: developments and plans

  • Poul Joachim Stender (Priest and writer)
    Kardamili as a time of gifts

  • Evita Arapoglou (Curator of Ghika – Craxton – Leigh Fermor: Charmed Lives in Greece)
    Patrick Leigh Fermor, Niko Ghika, John Craxton: Friendship in Greek Landscapes

  • Adam Sisman (Editor of Patrick Leigh Fermor's correspondence)
    Dashing for the Post – Patrick Leigh Fermor as a letter-writer

  • Charles Lock (Professor of English Literature, University of Copenhagen)
    Redeeming the Romaic: Patrick Leigh Fermor and the Idea of Greece

  • Christopher Bakken (Writer, poet and professor of English, Allegheny College, U.S.A.)
    Confessions of a 21st century Philhellene: Writing under the Influence of Patrick Leigh Fermor

The symposium is the last in a series of events (2009-2018) generously funded by the Sophia Scopetéa Bequest and the very last event of the programme in Grækenlandsstudier – Modern Greek Studies – at the University of Copenhagen.

Open to all – for attendance on Friday please register before 21 January with tsw@hum.ku.dk

Contact: Trine Stauning Willert