April 1, 2017 should go down in the Book of Records as a very particular date. No, this is not an April Fool’s belated message.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko, a Russian poet, a thinker and an activist belonging to the now defunct USSR died on April 1 of this year. He was 83 years old.

Among his many lines of poetry and other writings, his monumental poem Babi Yar must stand out.

It was brave. It was heartfelt. The man showed courage. The idealist stood out.

Yevtushenko, writing during the heyday of the Soviet political system penned pungent poetry decrying what he perceived as atrocious when he used the following lines in Babi Yar to express his utter disgust: “The leaders of the tavern mob are raging… And they stink… Kicked aside by a boot, I lie helpless… In vain I plead with the brutes.”

Not many years later after Babi Yar in distant Soviet Union, Oriana Fallaci, renowned for her provocative political interviews, published her international bestseller, A man. This powerful novel is built on her intensely private anguish.

A man is both a riveting love story and a dynamic portrait of the Greek poet and hero Alexander Panagoulis at the time of the dictator Papadopoulos and his generals when they ruled the country with an iron fist and boundless assassinations, physical and psychological.

It is strong literature and truth. The very opening sentence in the prologue is ample evidence: “A roar of grief and rage rose over the city and boomed, relentless, obsessive, sweeping away any other sound, beating out the great lie.”

The clock without hands marks the journey of memory.

Yevtushenko’s celebrity gavehim clout.

Fallaci’s publication, “a riveting and deeply moving analysis”, is not restricted to skilfully-written prose and as a compelling story of politics in the nearby Aegean Sea. It should also be an eye-opener.

To me, both Yevtushenko and Panagoulis are no more than a poet for the Russians as well as for the Greeks. Individually and collectively, they deserve to be ‘a man’ for all seasons.

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