CHrysoula V. Dimitrakaki

Chrysoula Dimitrakaki was born in Athens, with roots in Rethymno and Atsipopoulo, the birthplace of her father. She is an author and poet in both Greek and English. In her professional career, she serves as a financial executive in a business group in Athens, holding postgraduate degrees in Human Resource Management and an MBA from Teesside University in England. Her academic writings focus on "Leadership" and "Human Behavior" research. A mother of two, she is a volunteer with the Red Cross, having served at the First Aid station and the 'Red Cross' hospital, and is currently part of the war volunteer corps. She is also a 10 km runner, having won the Silver medal in the International Messini Road Race in 2005. She has been writing since her university years, with her first poem published in the 1980s. Her first poetry collection, "Poetry," was released in 2005 by Haris Patses Publishing, featuring three sections: "Winds and Storms," "Crete of Dreams," and "Sea of the Soul." In 2006, her novel "Francesca" was published by the same publisher, followed in 2007 by the poetry collections "Trilogy: Existence-Life-Human" and the Greek-English edition "Stone and Water," as well as the second edition of "Francesca" by Iolkos Publishing. That same year, she contributed texts to the tribute "City-Memories-Legends," presented at the Athens Concert Hall, narrated by Anna Synodinos and Grigoris Valtinos, organized by the Alumni Association of 'Hellenic Education.' In 2009, Iolkos Publishing released her collection of essays and poetry "The Rustle of the Great Oak." She has been awarded the 2006 Gold Medal in Literature by the M. Madhusudan Academy of India and the University of Calcutta. She received the title of Doctor of Literature from the International Poetry Center USA and China in 2007, and the same year, the "Vergina Gold Medal" for promoting Greek culture abroad from the Salamis Cultural Association "Café of Ideas." She has been honored by the Union of Greek Writers in 2004, and in 2005, 2006, and 2010, at the Panhellenic Symposium "Sikeliana" and by UNESCO in 2005 and 2006. In 2008, she received the high honor from the Cretan Breeches Club, and in the same year in India, the global Anthology "Heaven" was published, dedicated to her poetry, while in Italy, she was included in the NOSSIDE catalog of internationally awarded poets writing in two languages. In 2009, the Giovanni Gronchi International Awards Committee in Italy awarded her the first international poetry prize, and the Atsipopoulo Cultural Association honored her for her contribution to the dissemination of literature. Her poetry, essays, and articles are published in newspapers and literary magazines, and she is a regular contributor to the "Cretan Review" newspaper in Rethymno and "Hellenic Opinion" in Dusseldorf, Germany. She is a member of the Union of Greek Writers, the International Society of Greek Philosophy, the World Congress of Poets, the Pancretan Union of Writers, and the Association of Cretan Press Journalists.