Editing Odysseas Elytis (section)

===Death===
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Odysseas Elytis had been completing plans to travel overseas to see friends when he died of heart failure in Athens on 18 March 1996, at the age of 84. He had made it known that he was a believer in cremation and had wished that somehow he could have been cremated, which the tenets of his Greek Orthodox religion do not support or allow. He was also a supporter of the legalization of euthanasia for people who wished to die after pain and suffering. Furthermore, he believed it was a woman's right to choose abortion in any circumstance.

In the last ten years of his life, he lived with a companion, Sofia Iliopoulou, who was 53 years his junior. Iliopoulou is an activist for children throughout the world, imparting her knowledge whenever she is able to. She is a successful artist in her own right, translating and composing her own works and giving poetry recitals at the Theocharakis Foundation in Athens. 

The funeral was held the next day after his death. The funeral was jammed with people who had loved his poetry. He was buried in a family grave beside his family, including his mother and brother.

Iliopoulou, as his life partner, inherited the immovable property in real estate of Elytis, which consisted of four apartments and the trustee power of copyrights to his work. She has been promoting Elytis with excellence in his legacy. Elytis was survived in his bloodline by his niece Myrsine (from his oldest brother Theodoros, born 1900) and his next in line older brother Evangelos. This brother (1909–2002) also received a writ of condolence from the mayor of Athens on behalf of the nation at the funeral at the First Cemetery of Athens.