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Biographical Note

Niki P. Stavrou is Senior Lecturer of Comparative Literature at the University of Indianapolis Athens Campus, and Foreign Rights and Public Relations Director at the Kazantzakis Publications Ltd. She holds a Master's degree in English Literature and two Bachelor's degrees, in Philosophy and Political Science.

Niki Stavrou was born in Geneva, Switzerland. The first home she ever knew was Eleni Kazantzakis’s apartment, a place filled with Nikos Kazantzakis. His manuscripts, pen, clothes, photographs and books were Niki’s first surroundings. Her godmother, Eleni Kazantzakis, named her ‘Niki’ after her beloved husband, and began to read to her all of Nikos Kazantzakis’s books, starting with Alexander the Great¹ and The Palaces of Knossos² and concluding with his Odyssey³, thoroughly explaining what lay on and in-between each line and illuminating every aspect of his life and philosophy. The bedtime stories Niki first heard were Eleni’s chronicles from her life with Nikos, their journeys, people who had affected their lives, their hopes and aspirations for the future.

Patroclos Stavrou's legal adoption by Eleni in 1982, when his daughter, Niki, was 10 years old, simply consummated the spiritual relationship between the Stavrou family and Eleni N. Kazantzakis, who often remarked that through this single legal act, she had acquired a whole family of her own: a son, a daughter-in-law and a granddaughter, who was already her goddaughter. From 1964 to 1974, Eleni had been unable to travel to her homeland, Greece, as the fearless expression of her views on human rights, freedom of speech and democracy, had proved unpopular with the military dictatorial regime. It was only after the junta had collapsed that she was able to travel freely to Greece and to closely and personally supervise the publication of her husband's work. From Geneva, Eleni would send gifts, boxes of chocolates and postcards to her granddaughter, and spent her summers and holidays with the Stavrou family in their homes in Greece and Cyprus where she collaborated with Patroclos on the editing, layout and foreign rights of Nikos Kazantzakis's books.

July 1974 found Eleni, Mary and the two year old Niki vacationing at a summer home in Kyrenia, which Eleni had only just bought in her name, when the Turkish armed forces invaded Cyprus. Patroclos was in Nicosia at the time, carrying out his duties as Under Secretary to the President of the Republic, Archbishop Makarios. Both locations were definitive for their fate. Niki's new home was located at the very spot of the Turkish invasion; from the balcony, Eleni and Mary with her daughter in her arms, were watching the Turkish fleet approaching and the mountains of Pentadaktylos behind them burning, having been set ablaze by Turkish forces to guide their naval assault.

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Patroclos was in the Presidential Palace when, a few days before the invasion, the Junta had rammed through its gates in an assassination attempt against Archbishop Makarios, who had barely escaped from the rear gates of the presidential palace, accompanied by a few trusted people. In a dramatic dialogue between Makarios and Patroclos Stavrou, the latter remained behind to stall the assailing junta forces and was subsequently captured and placed under house arrest while his country was being plundered and constitutional order abolished. Patroclos was misinformed that his family had been killed and Eleni and Mary, having received the news of the assassination attempt at the Presidential Palace, thought the same about him. Eleni's courage, however, who, even at gunpoint, spoke fearlessly to the Turkish soldiers, was her family's salvation. She insisted they were Swiss tourists, and as such, they were eventually rescued by a British helicopter, sent to evacuate foreign nationals.

In 1989, Eleni suffered a car accident in Geneva, which left her with multiple injuries and severe fractures. On May 1st, 1989, Eleni came to Athens to live in Voula with Patroclos, Mary and Niki and since that time, the Stavrou-Kazantzakis family never parted, until the 18th of February, 2004, when Eleni left her last breath at the Henry Dunant Hospital, holding her son's hand.

Niki Stavrou was fortunate to grow up in a house which, for many years, had been a destination point for artists, dignitaries and literary personalities who traveled from across the world to meet Eleni and to express to her their love for Nikos Kazantzakis. Knowing his work deeply, Niki has delivered lectures on Nikos Kazantzakis in national and international conferences, at the Academy of Athens, the Cyprus University Symposium, the University of Wurzburg, the AHEPA Convention at Zappeion Megaron, and she has been awarded by the English Department of the University of Indianapolis for her research on the life and work of the great Cretan author. One of her research fields concerns the verification and discovery of the real people behind the immortalized characters in Nikos Kazantzakis's books, and especially, his autobiographical novel Report to Greco. During her research, Niki Stavrou established the connection between Nikos and his first love, by identifying the Irish Lass of chapter 14 of Report to Greco, Kathleen Forde, an Irish woman with an adventurous spirit and a love for literature. In this remarkable literary detective story, Niki's invaluable associate has been Kathleen's great-niece, Cathleen Scaife. In February 2003, Niki was invited by the Irish Hellenic Society to Trinity College, Dublin, together with her father, Patroclos Stavrou, where she presented her findings and on March 1, 2004, The Irish Times published an extensive article by Rev. Patrick Comerford on this intriguing story.

Niki's enduring commitment to the service of the memory of Nikos Kazantzakis and her beloved grandmother, Eleni, is affirmed through her on-going research on their life and work and the constant advancement of the Kazantzakis Publications Ltd.