Born in Arta in 1917, Michalis Peranthis (aka Michalis Papadopoulos) was a poet, prose writer and critic, one of the best of the modern Greek literature.

He attended primary and secondary school in his native town and in 1934 he started the courses of the Law School at the University of Athens.

He published poems as early as 1933 in the newspapers “Students Print” and “Free Speech” in Arta and in 1935 he was awarded by the Epirus Association for collecting folklore material ever since he was a student. During his stay in Athens, he worked as a journalist, a director of various encyclopedias, and as an advisor over cultural affairs for the Government.

From 1949 he dedicated himself exclusively to literature. He wrote poems, readings, travel impressions, vignettes books, theatre and cinema reviews, historical and children’s novels, historical works, studies and anthologies. On the whole, Michalis Peranthis wrote more than forty books which, after being republished, go beyond seventy editions.