Daphne Athas

1923 - 2020

Daphne Athas

November 19, 1923 - July 28, 2020

Chapel Hill

Daphne Athas, a long-time resident of Chapel Hill, passed away on July 28, 2020 after a long and adventurous life. She was born in Cambridge, MA on November 19, 1923 to a Greek immigrant father and a Boston Brahmin mother. Her childhood years were spent in Cambridge and Gloucester, MA until the family left New England for North Carolina after losing their fortune in the stock market crash of 1929.

Daphne graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in three years and had her first novel, "The Weather of the Heart", published when she was 23 years old. Writing and teaching became two of her great passions along with reading, traveling and snorkeling. She lived in London, New York and Boston in the 1950's and taught at the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, MA while doing graduate work in education at Harvard. Her experience at Perkins resulted in her second novel, "The Fourth World".

In the late 1950's, Daphne made her first trip to Greece. She traveled with her father from Athens to the Western Peloponnese where he had grown up. She met her Greek relatives and gathered family stories that made their way into her third book, "Greece By Prejudice". This trip also started a love affair with Greece that lasted for the rest of her life.

Daphne began teaching at UNC-Chapel Hill in the English Department in 1968 and continued to teach creative writing there until she retired in 2008 at the age of 85. She was a beloved teacher and her class about grammar, "Glossolalia", became, and remains, very popular on campus.

In 1971, Daphne's novel, "Entering Ephesus" was chosen as one of the Top Ten fiction novels of the year by Time Magazine. With this thinly-veiled fictional account of her family's fall from grace in the 1930's, she gained some notoriety as a writer and went on to publish her fifth novel, "Cora" in 1978, for which she won the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction. Between these two literary efforts, Daphne taught as a Fulbright scholar in Tehran during the 1974-75 academic year.

A 2007 book based on her UNC grammar class, called "Gram-O-Rama", was published with the editorial assistance of her UNC colleague, Marianne Gingher. In 2010, a collection of essays Daphne had written over time regarding her experiences both growing up in, and observing the transformation of Chapel Hill through her lifetime, was published under the title, "Chapel Hill in Plain Sight: Stories From the Other Side of the Tracks". This collection was very well received locally and Daphne actively promoted it with a number of public readings during her 87th year.

In addition to her novels, Daphne's work appeared in a number of journals and periodicals including South Atlantic Quarterly, New World Writing, Shenandoah, American Letters and Commentary, Chicago Tribune Book World, Transatlantic Review, College English and The Philadelphia Enquirer.

A conversation with Daphne was an endless source of inspiration and joy for anyone who had the privilege of engaging her. She loved life and lived it with great passion and purpose. Her love of clever wordplay and musical harmony were as legendary as was her tenacity, wit and devotion to the pursuit of her writing.

Daphne outlived her siblings Rachel, Thalia and Homer and is survived by her nieces and nephews: Steven Silverleaf of Carrboro, NC, Andrea (Francis) Rondeau of Douglas, MA, Scott Francis of Spartanburg, SC and Dana Francis of Santa Rosa, CA. Additionally, she is survived by her very dear friend, Miranda Cambanis of Chapel Hill, NC.

There will be a celebration of Daphne's life at a future date when public gatherings can be safely held. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in her memory to the Chapel Hill, NC, Meals on Wheels Program or to the Transitions Lifecare program in Raleigh, NC.