Edmund Leroy "Mike" Keeley (February 5, 1928 – February 23, 2022) was an American novelist, translator, and essayist, a poet, and Charles Barnwell Straut Professor of English at
Princeton University. He was a noted expert on the Greek poets
C. P. Cavafy,
George Seferis,
Odysseus Elytis, and
Yannis Ritsos, and on post-Second World War Greek history.
Keeley served twice as president of the
Modern Greek Studies Association from 1970 to 1973 and 1980 to 1982, and as president of
PEN American Center from 1992 to 1994. He retired from a long career of teaching English, creative writing, and Hellenic studies at Princeton University in 1994.[1]
His fiction and non-fiction are often set in Greece, where he spent part of each year, but also in Europe and the
Balkans, where he has frequently traveled, and in Thailand and Washington, D.C.. He lived with his wife Mary Stathato-Kyris (married in 1951) in
Princeton, New Jersey, from 1954 until her death in 2012.[1][3] Keeley died from complications of a blood clot at his home in
Princeton, New Jersey on February 23, 2022, at the age of 94.[2]
C. P. Cavafy, Selected Poems (With Philip Sherrard) Princeton University Press, 1972
Odysseus Elytis, The Axion Esti (with George Savidis) Pittsburgh University Press, 1972
C. P. Cavafy, Three Poems of Passion (with George Savidis) Plain Wrapper Press, 1975
C. P. Cavafy, Collected Poems (With Philip Sherrard and George Savidis) Princeton University Press, 1975, revised edition, Princeton University Press, 1992. -
ISBN0-691-01537-6
Angelos Sikelianos, Selected Poems (With Philip Sherrard) Princeton University Press, 1979
The Dark Crystal: An Anthology of Modern Greek Poetry (With Philip Sherrard) Denise Harvey & CO, 1981
Voices of Modern Greece: Selected Poems of C.P. Cavafy, Angelos Sikelianos, George Seferis, Odysseus Elytis, Nikos Gatsos (With Philip Sherrard) Princeton University Press, 1981 -
ISBN0-691-01382-9
Yannis Ritsos, Return and Other Poems Parallel Editions, 1983
C. P. Cavafy, A Selection of Poems (with Philip Sherrard) Camberwell Press, 1985