Periklis Korovesis, leftist activist, dies aged 79

Leftist author and journalist Periklis Korovesis died on Saturday after a brief illness in hospital. He was 79.

During the 1967-74 military dictatorship, he was arrested, jailed and sent into exile. His book “The Method: A Personal Account of the Tortures in Greece” (“Anthropofylakes” in Greek), a firsthand account of the physical and mental torture of dissidents at the hands of the police, exposed the brutality of the junta to the rest of the world. Born on the Ionian island of Kefalonia in 1941,

Korovesis studied in France beside influential intellectuals including the Greek-French philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis. He joined the Left at an early age. He published a number of books and worked as a commentator for various newspapers, including Eleftherotypia and Efimerida ton Syntakton. He remained prolific in his later years.

In 1998 he was elected a municipal councilor of the City of Athens. In 2007 he was elected as an MP for SYRIZA.