Rea Galanaki

Rea Galanaki was born in Heraklion, Crete, in 1947. She studied History and Archaeology in Athens and currently resides in Patras. Galanaki has published novels, short stories, poems, and essays. She is one of the founding members of the Hellenic Authors' Society (established in 1981). She has been awarded the State Prize twice (in 1999 for the novel "Eleni, or Nobody" and in 2005 for the short story collection "An Almost Blue Hand"). Additionally, she received the "Kostas and Eleni Ouranis" Prose Award from the Academy of Athens in 2003 for the novel "The Century of Labyrinths," the "Nikos Kazantzakis" Award from the Municipality of Heraklion, Crete, in 1987, and the "Readers' Award" from the National Book Centre of Greece in 2006 for the novelistic chronicle "Silent, Deep Waters." Her novel "The Life of Ismail Ferik Pasha" was the first Greek book to be included in UNESCO's "UNESCO Collection of Representative Works" (1994), while "Eleni, or Nobody" was shortlisted for the European "Aristeion" Prize, reaching the final three candidates (1999). Her works have been translated into fifteen languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Czech, Bulgarian, Swedish, Lithuanian, Turkish, Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, and Albanian. [photo: Athina Kazolea]