Growing up near Boston, Greek-American Maria Karagianis relished hearing richly woven tales at her immigrant grandmother’s knee. Thrilling accounts of the bravery showcased by the rugged Spartans fueled her imagination, whisking her to outposts like the summit of Mount Taygetos and the paternal family village of Georgitsi.

“Their stories mesmerized me,” she recalls, her voice soft, dripping with a musical Boston brogue. Those accounts, she adds with characteristic energy, formed the launching pad for a daring, colorful career in print journalism.

After finishing her undergraduate work at Simmons College with an English degree, Karagianis, still in her early 20s, landed a job at the Boston Globe, one of America’s largest and most respected daily newspapers. “In those days,” she recalls, “the place was all men, except for a few women reporters.” It was an era, she added, where papers prominently displayed individual women’s sections. Articles peppered with recipes and features about debutantes and cotillions.

But Karagianis couldn’t have been less interested writing about women flitting around the upper echelons of Boston society. She hungered for in-your-face action, the kind where you proudly produced worn shoe leather to show for it. In short order, she got her wish. Karagianis found herself part of the Globe’s reporting team that covered the front lines of violence that erupted in the wake of a court ruling that desegregated Boston’s public schools.   “It created a war zone,” she remembers. “Bombs, rocks, soldiers on the roof with machine guns.” So much, she notes, for Bean Town’s iconic portrayal as America’s cradle of democracy.

Her efforts led to recognition that a scant few journalists receive in their careers: “I was part of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal.”

But what happened in Boston was only the beginning for Karagianis, 74. What came next was another painful close-up of man’s inhumanity to man. This time, she journeyed nearly 8,000 miles away, to cover apartheid in South Africa. She was part of an exchange program between the Globe and the defunct Rand Daily Mail, a large, English-language newspaper in Johannesburg that took an anti-apartheid editorial stand.

“I developed sources,” she says, “because the paper hired people of different races. That’s why they closed it down.” She gave another example of the scourge of apartheid. When she and coworkers – one of them Black – would hit the bar after work for beers, they would be forced to sneak the Black writer in the back door.

However dark and dismal the life that the white minority government inflicted on a majority-black population, Karagianis, ever the curious scribe, carved out time to see the city that spoke to her senses. “Cape town was probably the most beautiful city I’ve ever seen. Beautiful but terrifying for a working-class Greek girl.”

In 2015, touched by the reports of refugees flooding the island of Lesvos from hot spots like Syria and Afghanistan, she felt compelled to follow her reportorial impulses. As a freelance writer, the Greek government refused to give Karagianis a press pass. However, she’s not the type who takes “no” well. It’s not in her vocabulary.

Undaunted, she met a group of evangelical Christians from Lancaster, PA who were preparing to enter the refugee camp, known as Moira. They invited her to blend in with them, to surround her as if she were part of the group. The camouflage paid off. Karagianis spent five hours inside the camp, which eventually was burned down. “It was so upsetting.” So much so, her back “went into convulsions.”

When her dramatic, front row seat chronicling events on the world stage was folded up, Karagianis spent more time back home in Boston. But the ‘rebel’ daughter, whose conventional father was dismayed that she “didn’t get married to a Greek guy at 18 and make babies” didn’t miss a beat. Undaunted, she continues leaving fingerprints by carving time to lend her love to this non-profit or that publication, hailing audiences and sharing what adventures await beyond each horizon.

Speaking in a clear, life-affirming lilt, Karagianis, summarized what being Greek has meant to her. “I was always proud to be Greek. The stories celebrating the fact that we’re brave and we don’t give up.”

As for the stern Greek father who expected his little girl to be a stay-at-home mom with no career aspirations of her own, Karagianis laughed as she reflected on his change of heart. When he began reading her bylines, the afterglow was sure to follow.  “He would say, `Hey, my name is on the front page of the Boston Globe!’”

Given all of the horrors, one would think that the up-close images of injustice Karagianis has witnessed as a reporter would have left her stuck in a cycle of cynicism. Not so.

“I’m probably eternally positive,” she said, her voice soft and delicate. Everything has to die before being reborn.”