From Greece to Toledo: The journey of the Greek culture through Islam
@ Kimon
Synopsis of the lecture: The troubled journey of ancient Greek knowledge through Islam and its entry into the West through Al-Andalus and Christian Spain is, to a greater degree than we imagine, one of the civilizational lines that have nourished our culture, and, undoubtedly, one of those little-known stories that unite us. Exploring it through texts, cities, roads and people is the object of this meeting in Amman with the Hellenist and Spanish writer Pedro Olalla, whose multifaceted work reflects from Athens on the scope of everything Greek in universal culture.
Pedro Olalla González de la Vega (Oviedo, Spain, 1966) is a writer, Hellenist, professor, translator and filmmaker. He develops, in these fields, his professional activity in collaboration with publishers and educational and cultural institutions from various countries around the world. For more than thirty-five years, he has maintained an intense relationship with Greece, a country where he began his journey into Hellenism and where, in 1994, he took up as his place of residence.
He has published more than 30 original works in different languages, as well as a long series of journalistic articles and more than a hundred translations of Greek and Spanish authors, specializing in literature, archaeology, history and humanities. Parallel to writing, he worked for more than twenty years as a teacher of translation, teacher of Spanish as a foreign language, and of Greek language and civilization.
For his work in the study and promotion of Greek culture, he has been named Ambassador of Hellenism by the Greek state, Knight of the Order of Civil Merit by the Spanish state, Member of the Centre for Hellenic Studies at Harvard University, Corresponding Member of the Society of Greek Writers, among others.
The activity is held on the occasion of the World Book Day.
