George Seferis (1900–1971) was born near Smyrna in Asia Minor. His long and distinguished diplomatic career began in 1925: he was appointed Ambassador to the UK, a post which he held from 1957 to 1962. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1963. He famously opposed the Greek junta of the Colonels in a BBC radio broadcast in 1969. Roderick Beaton’s biography, George Seferis: Waiting for the Angel, appeared in 2003.