Tonia Tzirita Zacharatou is a Greek poet based in Athens. She studied law and comparative literature. Currently, she is a PhD candidate in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki working on comparative readings of C.P. Cavafy in the framework of mourning studies.
In 2020 her first book, Second Youth(Δεύτερηνεότητα), won the “Thraca Editions Award”–which resulted in its publication– in which she navigates the premature disillusionment of a young woman in the 21st century. She was awarded the “Anagnostis” Literary Prize for New Author of the “Anagnostis” Magazine, the “Jean Moreas” Literary Prize for New Author, and she was shortlisted for the National Prize for Young Writers. In 2021 she participated in Womanifesto, a film project of the visual artist Efi Spyrou seeking to highlight the female artistic voice of today. In 2022 her poem “Your River” was one of the awarded poems in the “Coal Fired: The Greek Poetry of Climate Change”, an event co-organized by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Public Humanities Initiative of Columbia University (SNFPHI) and Thraca Magazine. Her most recent project is the translation of the contemporary Portuguese poet Tatiana Faia into Greek.
As a poet she has collaborated with various literary festivals. In 2020 she was one of the invited young poets at the 7th Young Writers Festival (Thessaloniki International Book Fair). She has appeared in the Thessalian Poetry Festival (2020, 2021), the Patras World Poetry Festival (2021) and the Athens World Poetry Festival (2020-2022). Her writings have been translated in English and Portuguese and published in print and online magazines.