Biography

Writer, journalist, designer and filmmaker, Vassilis Alexakis was born in 1943 in Greece. At the age of 17, he moved to France and joined the Ecole de journalisme in Lille. After returning to Greece in 1964, he fled again from his country after the colonels' coup d'etat. In 1968, he joined the Monde des Livres, where he remained 15 years.

In 1974, he published his first book in french, Le Sandwich. Followed by La tête du chat (1978); Talgo (2003), a french translation of a small novel (a long letter written by an athenian bovary to her lover) which Alexakis had written in Greek in 1982, the year of his divorce, and Contrôle d'identité (1985).

In Paris-Athènes (1989), we already find everything that makes the magnitude of the writer: the quest for words. "A little odyssey through two languages, an overwhelming evocation of the dramas and joys engendered by such a trip, Paris-Athènes, is more than that: the quest of a "me" constantly fleeing and that only literature allows to apprehend, and perhaps save." (Presentation by the editor).