Penelope Delta

Penelope Delta (Greek: Πηνελόπη Δέλτα; 1874, Alexandria, Khedivate of Egypt – 2 May 1941, Athens) was a Greek author of teenage literature. Practically the first Greek children's books writer, her historical novels have been widely read and influenced Greek popular perceptions on national identity and history. Through her long-time association with Ion Dragoumis, Delta was thrust in the middle of the turbulent early 20th-century Greek politics, from the Macedonian Struggle to the National Schism. She committed suicide on the day German troops entered Athens in World War II.

Delta was born in Alexandria, in the Khedivate of Egypt, to Virginia (née Choremi) and the wealthy cotton merchant Emmanuel Benakis. She was the third of six children, her two older siblings being Alexandra and Antonis Benakis, whose Tom Sawyer-like mischiefs she immortalized in her book Trellantonis; her younger siblings were Constantine, who died at the age of two, Alexander, and Argine.

The Benaki family temporarily moved to Athens in 1882, where she later married a wealthy Phanariote entrepreneur, Stephanos Delta, with whom she had three daughters, Sophia Mavrogordatou, Virginia Zanna, and Alexandra Papadopoulou. Stephanos Delta was a nephew of mathematician Constantin Carathéodory. They returned to Alexandria in 1905, where she met Ion Dragoumi, then the Vice-Consul of Greece in Alexandria. Dragoumi, like Penelope Delta, also wrote about the Macedonian Struggle and his personal recollections of it in his books. Penelope Delta formed a romantic relationship with him for some time. Out of respect for Delta and her children, Delta and Dragoumi decided to separate, but continued to correspond passionately until 1912, when Dragoumi started a relationship with the famous stage actress Marika Kotopouli. In the meantime Penelope had twice attempted suicide.

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