Panos K. Koutroumpousis

The prose writer, translator, and visual artist Panos (Pete) Koutrouboussis (1937-2019) was born in Livadeia and grew up in Athens. He studied directing in Rome and enrolled in the School of Fine Arts in Paris, although he did not attend. He made his literary debut in 1958 as a representative of Beat literature, with publications in the magazine "Athenian Letters," in Leonidas Christakis's publications, and other magazines of the time, while also working in film as an assistant film producer. He was part of the group of "Greek Existentialists," which included Theodoros Pangalos and Dimitris Poulikakos. He was a personal friend of Giorgos Makris and a member of the editorial board of the magazine "Pali" in 1963. With the onset of the dictatorship in 1967, he moved to London, where he worked in radio and illustrated science fiction books. He spent a few years in the Middle East and America, working for magazines and exhibiting his visual art. In 1978, his first book, "En agalia de Krisgiaourti y otros tachydramas y historias perierges," was published in Athens. In the 1980s, he published short stories and tales in many Greek magazines and newspapers, including "Ta Nea," "Eleftherotypia," "Babel," "Tachydromos," and "Anti." His works (tachydramas, i.e., mini theatrical plays with altered moments of everyday life, the interpretation of which is left to the viewer) were presented at the "Third Theatre" of ERT, directed by Giorgos Christodoulakis, as well as on radio in Greece and abroad. Koutrouboussis's literary work is a blend of surrealism, folk narrative, fantasy literature, comics, wordplay, and Beat literature, while his later work consists of longer fictional and satirical texts. His visual art includes illustrations for magazine covers, painted collages, photographs, and constructions. He published the books: "En agalia de Krisgiaourti y otros tachydramas y historias perierges," 1978, 2nd ed. 1987; "Perierges istories-tachydramas," 1978; "Ston thalamo tou Mythograff: mikro-istories," 1992; "I taverna tou Zola: Kainourgies kai metacheirismenes mikro-istories," 1997; "To kentraki tou Tarzan kai alla paramythia," 2005; "Eikones stin ammo. O Barouz stin Ouasigkton," 2005. He passed away in Athens on March 21, 2019, at the age of 82.