It is rather paradoxical that Eugène Guillevic – or simply "Guillevic", as he signed his works – remains largely unknown in Greece. Honored with the most significant literary awards in his country – the Grand Poetry Prize of the French Academy (1976), the Grand National Poetry Prize (1984), the Guillaume Apollinaire Prize for Poetry (1988) – and translated into over fifty languages, Guillevic (1907-1997) was one of the leading French poets of the 20th century.

Although some of his poems have been translated into Greek over the years and included in anthologies, his voice, the voice of a poet who, despite being a contemporary of the surrealists and a friend of Eluard and Aragon, cultivated a unique poetic idiom in contrast to surrealism, remains to be discovered by the Greek reader.

The present edition of "The Sea" (1987), one of his most extensive and representative poems, does not, of course, fill the gap; however, it aspires to contribute to a better first acquaintance with the poet.