AustLit

Andrew Fatseas spent four years at elementary school and three years at 'scholarhio' before his emigration. In Australia he worked in cafes and milkbars until 1935 when he began working for the Greek Australian newspaper To Ethniko Vema in Sydney. After eight years in the paper's editorial department, he was appointed in 1944 to the Australian Army to teach English to its serving Greek soldiers. The same year the Greek Community of Sydney employed him to teach at its community school. He became its principal in 1945 and held that position until 1956. From 1954 to 1980 he has also worked as an official interpreter and translator of Greek at the New South Wales courts and has also taught English by correspondence through the NSW Department of Education. He published his first poems in 1927. Among other activities his consistent letters to the Sydney Morning Herald on issues relating to immigration often prompted that paper's editorials on such issues. In 1952 he won first prize in the Oikogeneia poetry competition and gained an honorary mention in its short story competition the same year.