Andreas Zarbalas

Who is Andreas Zarbalas?

Andreas Zarbalas is an Albanian-born Greek poet and journalist.

Zarbalas, was born in the village of Llazat near Sarandë, in southern Albania. He initially worked as a Greek language teacher in local schools. At 1968 he started to write poems in the literary column of the newspaper Laiko Vima, which was the only printed media allowed to be published in Greek language, in communist Albania. He mainly composed poems in free verse.

At 1991 when the communist regime in Albania collapsed he became one of the founding members and the first President of the local Greek political and cultural organization Omonoia. At the following elections he got elected as a representative of Omonoia in the Albanian Government.

Zarbalas published his first poetry collection We insist, in 1981. Moreover, with his collection 101 poems for a handful of earth, written in 1972, but unpublished until 1991, Zarbalas became a key figure among the Greeks in southern Albania. He used free verse as a symbol of free spirit. Zarbalas used a lot of traditional elements with a metaphoric and allegoric approach.