Rosita Sokou

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Rosita Sokou (born 1923, Athens) is a Greek journalist and author.

She graduated from the Arsakeio School in Psychiko. She attended the School of Fine Arts, was a pupil of painter Yannis Tsarouchis and also attended the Vassilis Rotas Drama School, while working from a tender age as a translator and a foreign language teacher. After the end of the German Occupation and Civil War, in 1947, she studied 20th century literature in Oxford.

One of the first women journalists in Greece, she started her career as a film critic in 1946, writing in newspapers such as Vradini, Kathimerini, Acropolis, Ethnos, Apoghevmatini and the English-language Athens News, as well as numerous magazines and regularly attended film festivals in Cannes, Venice, Thessaloniki etc. From the 70s, she expanded to theatre criticism and various other columns.

During the period 1977–1983 she became a celebrity thanks to the TV show Na I Efkeria ("Opportunity knocks"), where she was a member of the panel examining the candidates, while in 1992-93 she hosted her own show at Νew Channel.

She has translated many books – among others Aldous Huxley, Ingmar Bergman, Isaac Asimov and Stanisław Lem – reflecting her own tastes and interests, as well as comics such as the "Corto Maltese" series by Hugo Pratt. She has translated, edited and updated the two-volume "Cinema" encyclopedia by Georges Charensol.

Since 1974 she started her deeper involvement with theatre, writing the play The Portrait of Dorian Grey (based on Oscar Wilde's novella), and adapting Lenz for Dimitri Potamitis' Experimental Theatre. Later on, she translated Sam Sheppard’s Shock and Edward Alby’s Sea View for Yorgos’ Messalas. Together with her daughter, she translated Manjula Padmanabhan’s Harvest which was awarded 1st prize at the Onassis International Theatre Competition in 1998 and Jean Anouilh’s Jesabel for Jenny Roussea’s troupe in 1999.

She has published the books Nureyev (1982), Anastassios (1985), Nureyev – as I knew him (2003) the play Quai Voltaire (1991) and Mario and I, about singer Mario Frangoulis (2005). She is working on her autobiography titled The men in my life.

She has been given the medal Chevalier de l' Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for her services to cinema by the French government (1986), and awarded by the Botsis Foundation (1988) for her offer to Greek journalism.

She lives in Athens. From her daughter Irene she has two grandchildren, Tancredi (1993) and Lavinia-Farida (1997). Her joy is cooking and entertaining her friends, among which there are always a few old-time schoolmates as well as many young people, who always seem to seek and enjoy her company for the freshness of her indomitable spirit.