Odysseus Elytis (1911–1996) was born Odysseas Alepoudelis in Heraklion, Crete, and became the most celebrated Greek lyric poet of the twentieth century. Associated with the Surrealist movement in his early work, he developed a poetry rooted in the Aegean landscape, the Greek tradition, and a radiant celebration of light and life. His major work Axion Esti (Worthy It Is, 1959), a complex poem blending liturgy, history, and lyric, is considered a national poem of Greece. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1979. Other significant collections include Orientations (1940) and The Sovereign Sun. He studied law and literature in Athens and spent important years in Paris.