Former Culture Minister Myrsini Zorba, passed away at the age of 74. The news of her death was announced on her Facebook page.She was struggling with cancer in the last three years.
A few hours before her death, Zorba posted a heartbreaking yet thoughtful post that “chemotherapy did not work and there were no alternatives.”
“The word that fits this short horizon of mine is non-existence. It cannot be described, because it is off a place, off time. Last week in the discussion with the doctor I understood that we are stopping the chemotherapy, they did not work, and that there are no alternatives. Therefore non-existence is that which best expresses, that most accurately articulates what is to come.”
Myrsini Zorba served as culture minister in the SYRIZA-ANEL coalition government from August 2018 to July 2019. She was also an MEP from 2000 to 2004, the first director of the National Book Center of Greece (EKEVI) from 1995 to 1999, and a publisher at Odysseas publishing house from 1973 to 1992.
Born in Athens in 1949, Zorba studied at the Athens University Law School from 1968 to 1972 and completed her postgraduate studies in Philosophy of Law at the University of Rome as a fellow of the Italian government from 1973 to 1974. She taught theory and politics of culture at Athens University from 1992 to 1995 and from 2005 to 2007, and at the Hellenic Open University from 2006 to 2012. In 2004, she founded the non-governmental organization Network for Children’s Rights and founded the first school for refugee children in the summer of 2015.
Zorba opposed Greece’s military dictatorship (1967-74) as a member of the Patriotic Anti-dictatorship Front (PAM), the Greek-European Youth Movement (EKIN), and the first issue of Anti magazine. She co-founded the Odysseas publishing house in 1973 and translated the works of Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci. In the post-dictatorship era, she was a member of the Greek Communist Party of the Interior (KKE Interior), the Greek Left (EAR), and the Politeia movement. From 2000 to 2004, she served as an MEP with PASOK socialists.
From 2009 to 2015, Zorba succeeded Nikos Themelis as the director of the political office of former prime minister Kostas Simitis. In 2018, Alexis Tsipras called her to become the minister of culture.
Her written work includes articles in foreign and Greek scientific journals, as well as in Greek periodicals and newspapers.
